Grimferno
by llnbooks
Summary: Dante's "worst day ever" starts with an unwelcome blast from his past. It continues with being abducted into the game along with a bus full of non-gamer high school students . It may end with his death. Rated T to be safe for whump and some language.
1. Chapter 1

_AN 1: I didn't mean for this to turn into another novel, but I was in the mood to write an action piece and it kind of took on a life of its own, even if it didn't gel quite the way I thought it would Anyway, if you're here, you must like the show, so I hope you'll enjoy this extended story. I also hope you'll forgive me any ooc, but I kind of made up some character history based off comments in the pilot movie, so it probably should be considered AU. There are original characters, but I think you'll understand why after you start reading. Heavily centers around Dante and Angie, but I wouldn't leave out Wyatt and Lyle. Reviews are fine, but flames will, as always, be ignored. As always, typos and plot holes are mine. If the Latin's wrong, blame the online translators. I'm at their mercy._

_AN 2: Here is your birthday present as promised, Z. It's even done on time._

_Rated T for action violence, peril, and I threw in a few bad words here and there (only where I thought they were necessary), and whump. Also, a little grossness, but honestly, we've seen the show, right? _

_Pairings: OC mostly. Could be considered D/A if you squint. It's intended to be friendship, but interpret it however you want, I'm not picky._

_Disclaimer: Don't own anything except my original characters._

**Level Up**

"Grimferno"

_By llnbooks_

"Do I need to remind you that you're still on academic probation because you're flunking Math, Science, English, and History?"

"No."

"And that academic probation equals strike two?"

"No."

"Or that your mom has brochures—and an application form-from New Haven Military Academy hanging on your fridge?"

"I get the point," Dante complained.

Wyatt wasn't so sure he did. There was more at stake than Dante's academic future. Wyatt wasn't just concerned because he didn't want one of his few true friends bundled off to another high school. Since the military weapon had accidentally formed a bridge between the online game '_Conquerer of All Worlds_' and the real world, Wyatt, Dante, Lyle, and Angie had found themselves the only people in the city with the right skills and know-how to defend the real world from the endless parade of Game Leak monsters unleashed into Daventry Hills. Their success depended upon the combination of Wyatt's computer skills, Angie's sensibility, Lyle's athleticism, and Dante's…well, Dante's borderline insanity and self-declared 'complete disregard for personal safety'.

Dante might not take the little things like high school grades and future careers and college seriously, but his mother did. She'd nearly sent him away to boarding school once when Dante had earned 'strike three' and brought down her wrath. Strike two had been staying out after curfew and strike three had been accidentally demolishing the Vice Principal's car while fighting one of the game Leaks. Dante flat out refused to tell Wyatt, Lyle, or Angie what 'strike one' had started off the entire mess.

Considering that Dante wasn't secretive about very many things and had almost no capacity for embarrassment, Wyatt figured it had been something very bad indeed. Wyatt figured defending Daventry Hills from game Leaks-at great risk to his own personal safety-on a daily basis made up for whatever past had earned Dante a pardon for whatever 'criminal' past he was keeping to himself.

So he added: "You're one report card away from eating military rations and torment by sadistic drill sergeants…and military barbers. Buzz cuts, Dante. Do you know how you're going to look with a buzz cut?"

Though Dante was one of the best and bravest online game-players and real life Leak-Barders one could ever meet, he still had a few phobias that could send him running in terror. It might have been dirty play to use one of those phobias against him now, but Wyatt could see the exaggerated shudder run through his friend at the mere mention of the word 'barber' and knew his point had been made.

"Like Gyllenhaal in '_Jarhead'_?" Dante tried.

"More like Pauly Shore in '_In The Army Now'_."

Dante grimaced in dread. "Which is why I'm saying that if you just hack into the school computer…"

Wyatt was not having this argument a fifth time. "For the last time, I'm not hacking the school computer to change your grades. I mean, I _could_ in like thirty seconds, but I won't. If you want my help…here it is."

They wound their way through the bustling, crowded halls of Daventry Hills High School-as usual, ignored by everyone except the occasional school bully, until Wyatt had guided Dante to a stop in front of the shortest, youngest, and smartest student in the school. Dante himself was diminutive in stature, but the boy in front of him was all of four feet tall, skinny as a broom, with thick glasses, a bow tie, and unruly red hair that stuck out in all directions. He carried a backpack that was almost bigger than he was. There was nothing child-like in the stare that was directed up at Dante. The kid had the frosty gaze of a disapproving police officer.

Dante looked the kid up and down and frowned. "_He's_ going to hack the school computer for me?"

Wyatt grabbed Dante's shoulders, maneuvering him to stand in front of the child. "No…Dante, this is Fred. He's going to tutor you until finals next month."

Dante shook his head. "No."

"He's the smartest kid in the county."

"He's _ten_."

The boy frowned, pushing his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose. "I'm eleven…I'm also five grade levels and about seventy I.Q. points higher than you, Cro-Magnon man."

Dante blinked blankly. "Cro-what?"

Wyatt interrupted. "Fred Wilkes, this is Dante Onterro."

The boys exchanged disapproving sneers and grudging nods.

Fred spoke to his new pupil. "I know you. Our moms go to the same post-divorce support group."

"And you're the mini-munch who hogs the _Groovemaster_ game at the bowling alley," Dante grumbled.

"So, I know that you have to do exactly as I tell you or you're going to military school. Do you want that? Didn't think so. Considering what we have to work with…"

"I c.c.'d him your history report on '_Caesar, Inventor of the Salad_'," Wyatt explained, cringing at the memory.

"…it will be a challenge. We can't possibly hope to boost you up to a 'C' average, but if we work very hard-including eight hours every weekend-we might just pull your grades up to a 'D' average," Fred concluded.

Dante turned back to Wyatt. "Where are we on that 'hack the school computer' idea?"

Fred pulled a small spiral notebook from his shirt pocket and scribbled something. "I'll add 'Attention Deficit Disorder' to the list of challenges."

"You could tutor me," Dante suggested to Wyatt.

Wyatt pried Dante's fingers off his shoulder and carefully moved out of his friend's reach. "We tried that, remember? You flicked corn nuts at my head and glued my laptop to the desk."

They were interrupted by an ear-piercing shriek not unlike the inhuman screams of some of the game Leaks that had invaded the city. Wyatt clamped his hands over his ears. His gaze swept over the hallways, afraid that Maldark had finally become brazen enough to send one of his monsters out into public. Fred flinched at the din.

Dante pulled out his cell phone. His ringtone was the source of the torturous noise.

"What is _that_?" Wyatt shouted, not quite able to describe the sound as 'music'.

Dante grinned. "My new band, Fart School Confidential…that's going to be the first download from our mp3 album." His good humor abated when he read the caller i.d.. Scowling, he thumbed the 'send' icon and turned away from Fred and Wyatt.

Fred looked at Wyatt. "I'm going to need more money."

Wyatt nodded, fishing another twenty dollar bill from his pocket. "Right."

A massive hand reached between the boys and snatched the money from Fred's hand. In the distraction created by Dante's cell phone torture, none of them had seen bully-at-large Big Joe creep up behind until he was suddenly towering over Fred and Wyatt. "I'll take that! Thanks, runts!"

"Hey!" Fred let out a futile cry as the bully moved one. "He's already stolen my lunch money today."

Wyatt nodded. "Mine, too."

Dante was pacing in circles. His fist gripped his cell phone tight enough to crush it. "You shouldn't be calling me at all…" he barked into the speaker. "…well, that's just terrific, I'm thrilled for you…but I'm not interested…well, maybe you should take _Gloria_…you know what, I can't do this with you now…no. I said _no_!" He hit the 'end' icon as if he were trying to poke out the eye of whoever had been on the line.

"Boyfriend trouble, megacramp?" Fred baited.

Wyatt was genuinely concerned, if only because Dante was not generally prone to angry outbursts. Whoever he'd been talking to, Dante was now agitated and flushed nearly as red as when he'd been accidentally sunburned by a UV blast from Wyatt's Blast-A-Ton 2.0 weapon. "Who was that?"

"Absolutely no one," Dante snapped.

Wyatt knew better than to push it. "Okay…so, Fred, what's the first phase of Operation 'Save Dante From Military School'?"

"We're taking a field trip for extra credit." Fred gestured 'follow me'. He led the way out the school doors to the mostly-deserted main parking lot, where a school bus waited. The driver sat in his seat, reading the newspaper want ads. A small knot of students had gathered. A tall girl with long blonde hair who seemed to have just stepped right off a ranch checked names off a list on her clipboard. A pretty African-American girl with wavy black hair sat on the curb sketching with charcoal pens on an artist's pad. A lanky boy with dark brown curls played piano on an iPad ap. They milled around the bus, waiting to board…

…_or reluctant to board_, Wyatt guessed when he read the sign posted by the bus: "Field Trip: Daventry Hills Alternative Energy Plant. Hosted by the Future Farmers of Daventry Hills. Learn about the exciting world of Methane energy".

Dante's brow furrowed. "What's 'methane'?"

Wyatt summed up: "In a nutshell, it's a noxious gas produced by cow excrement. Kind of like that odor that wafts from your locker when you forget to take home your leftover lunches for three months…"

"Methane…awesome name for a band…wait…" Dante paused, finally comprehending. He turned to Fred. "…you signed me up for a field trip to a _cow poop factory_!"

"'Alternative Energy Plant'," Fred corrected.

"Alternative energy from _cow poop_…which might be cool…" Dante shook his head, beating a retreat. "No, no, can't do it. I'm going home to pack."

Wyatt caught him with a boardinghouse reach and steered him back towards the bus. "Sit. Stay. Speak."

"Fine."

"Good boy." Wyatt gave him a pat on the head.

"Look, I enjoy a good noxious odor as much as the next person…" Dante started.

"You enjoy them a little more than the next person…" Wyatt disagreed.

"...but what kind of freak show voluntarily signs up for a field trip to a cow poop factory?" Dante crossed his arms, clutching his skateboard like a shield against whatever horrors waited at the dreaded factory.

On cue, a familiar dark-haired figure broke from the group of waiting students and nearly bounded across the parking lot in enthusiasm to join the boys. "Hey, guys! Can you believe they still had space on the bus?" Angie greeted.

"There's like seven people here, so, yeah…" Wyatt answered.

As usual, sarcasm would not dampen her zeal. "I know! It's a great turnout. This is going to be so exciting."

The two older boys blinked. "Or not," Wyatt said.

She smiled brightly. "Are you coming with us, Wyatt?"

Wyatt nearly tripped over himself stepping back from the waiting group. "Yeah…I've got to go and…not be on that bus." He pointed to Dante as he fled the scene. "Make sure he doesn't run away."

Angie nodded, accepting her assignment. She held out a hand to Dante. "Skateboard."

Grudgingly, he surrendered his transportation. Angie smiled, back to bubbly enthusiasm. "You'll get this back after the trip. Who's your little friend?"

Fred distanced himself from his student. "I am definitely not friends with this neuron. Let's get this over with." The boy hefted his unwieldy backpack and stumbled onto the bus.

Angie made a face at the boy. "Charming."

Dante decided sacrificing the skateboard might be a fair price for escaping his tiny terror of a tutor.

His cellphone shrieked. Angie discreetly covered her ears. Dante jammed his thumb on the 'Ignore' icon, missing Angie's quizzical stare. "Can't do this…" He looked at the bus. "…can't do that."

He was about to make a run for it, while Angie prepared to corral him, when the pretty artist crossed Dante's path on her way to board the school bus. He froze in his tracks, "Shayne Coulson…" The boy stared after her with unabashed adoration at the glint of the sun on her wavy hair and her meticulously clean-cut appearance. "Well maybe this won't be so bad..."

Angie rolled her eyes.

Once again, Big Joe took advantage of Dante's distraction to creep up from behind and stuff a large chunk of dried cow dung down the back of his shirt. "Little souvenir of your trip, nerd."

Dante spun like a puppy chasing his tail trying unsuccessfully to fish the foul chunk out of his shirt (after all, he still had to get two more days' wear out of his clothes to break his record for longest outfit "worn without washing") while Angie discreetly covered her nose.

"Worst. Day. _Ever_." Dante muttered under his breath.

The glow of the sphere was lost in the glare of the afternoon sun as it hovered above Daventry Hills High School. Anyone who happened to be foolish enough to stare directly at the sun would have mistaken its shimmer for the after-image of a sunspot burned into their retinas. At best, they might have a fleeting thought of UFOs. However, there was almost no chance that anyone would suspect it was an orb unleashed by a dimensional breach from an online computer game. Had they seen the reflection of an inhumanly distorted head in the orb, they would have surely dismissed it as a figment of their imagination.

Only five people in all Daventry Hills would know that Lord Maldark, the character for whom the game _Conqueror Of All Worlds_ had been named was quite real. Two of those people were about to board the school bus as the face in the orb watched. In particularly, Maldark's attention was riveted to the shaggy-haired being led to the bus by a girl who had him by the ear.

From his throne inside the castle of his game world, Maldark drummed his fingers. A smile curled his mouth into a sneer. He had been searching for months to find the insolent whelps who had defeated his invasion of the dimension called "I.R.L.". At last, his patience and endless supply of Leak spies had brought him success. "Well, well…the Honorable Knight Sir Bickle, away from his Clan and unarmed. How wonderful."

Maldark took the medallion from his neck and gave the iridescent blue stone at its center a tap.

A puff of blue smoke rose from the floor, swirling until a solid blue, muscular torso and an angular face with eyes as black as night materialized at the center of the cloud. The avatar known as the Grim Djinn had appeared in answer to the summons of the medallion that enslaved him to its possessor. He bowed to Maldark. "I am at your service, Master."

Maldark gestured to the image of the boy in the spy orb. "Prepare your Grimferno. Bring 'Sir Bickle' into your arena and see that he dies there."

It was something of a risk using a Grim Djinn as an assassin, Maldark knew. Still, it was also true that there was no deadlier nemesis in his computer-generated realm. One Grim Djinn was worth one hundred monsters because the shape-shifting genie could become any monster it needed to be to defeat an enemy. The risk was that, unlike Maldark's mindless minions, Grim Djinn's killed only by their own set of rules, an Assassin's Creed which they held to with mule-like stubbornness. There was no sport in simple murder as far as the Grim Djinn was concerned, only in a fight with established terms of engagement on their own battlefield, the arena called the Grimferno. But, once their terms were set and their prey was in hand, death was all but guaranteed. He would succeed where the drones barded by Sir Bickle and his Clan had failed.

The Grim Djinn bowed. "It shall be done exactly as you say, Master."

**2**

The bus had only seven passengers, not including the driver. Angie had let go of her grip on Dante's ear once she was satisfied that he would not bolt from the bus, but she followed him down the aisle in case he had any further thoughts of escape.

The boy with the iPad abruptly halted his piano practice when the two of them passed his seat. His brown eyes narrowed into a glare aimed squarely at Dante. Angie couldn't see her friend's face, but by the way his shoulders squared in a defiant posture, she could guess that Dante was glaring right back. The boy pointedly turned his back and concentrated on his computer again. Angie ushered Dante further down the aisle.

"Who is that?" she asked.

"Ghost of Cramposaurs Past," was all he said.

Dante spied Shayne and plopped into the bench seat behind hers. Angie took the seat opposite his. She shook her head as he stared dopily at the girl. Dante had been just as infatuated with the girl he'd dubbed 'Clean Cut Maggie' until her parents had taken one look at their daughter's would-be boyfriend and transferred her to an all-girls school.

Shayne sniffed the air, catching the lingering scent of dried cow dung. Angie saw her eyes shift to the large mirror above the driver to see who was sitting behind her. Discreetly, she collected her art supplies and all but ran to a seat near the front of the bus.

"Shot down again, eh?" Angie couldn't resist teasing Dante. He was unfazed by Shayne's skittishness, staring after her. "Why so fixated on Mary Poppins there?"

"She's in my Art class. So clean cut…so smart…and her art is like Picasso on Red Bull. She could animate computer games."

Angie whistled. "Wow. High praise indeed."

"…and she's so hot," he added.

Angie quirked an eyebrow, taking a moment to evaluate Shayne. The girl had a certain beauty, if you discounted her perpetually unsmiling state, frizzy hair, and thick glasses. She found it strange that a boy with utter disregard for personal hygiene and academic pursuits was hopelessly attracted to clean-cut, proper, and brainy girls. He hadn't reacted that way when he'd met Angie. In fact, he'd called her an "N.G.P." (a term both he and Wyatt had refused to explain to her at the time or since) and thrown her out of his room…

"If you say so," she said, beginning to be sorry that she'd asked.

"But if I get within two feet of her, she rabbits."

Angie nodded, "Then she clearly has good judgment, too."

Fred seated himself beside Dante, who quickly forgot about Shayne and slid as far from the boy as he could on the bench seat. "Can we try to get some studying done during the drive?" the tutor demanded.

He set his oversized backpack on Dante's lap and began to draw out thick textbooks. Dante was more interested in poking through the bag to see what else was inside. The child's stash of Hot Wheels cars immediately drew the older boy's attention.

"What are these? Transformers?" Dante tried pulling apart the cars until Fred smacked them out of his hands.

"No wonder you're failing every subject. You have the attention span of a fruit bat. Here, read chapter eight." When Dante stared at the books, Fred sighed. "You _can_ read, right?"

"Yes, I can read!" Dante retorted.

"Everyone? Hello? Can I have your attention up front, please?" The tall blonde cowgirl with the clipboard stood at the front of the bus, fumbling with the microphone. She waved her hands, but the indifferent passengers ignored her. Fred was still wrestling toy cars away from Dante. Big Joe was writing obscenities on the bus seat with a Sharpe pen. Shayne continued sketching, and the musician kept playing his iPad until the computer suddenly let out a racket almost as annoying as Dante's ringtone.

"Nice music-sounds like a zebra in a paper shredder," Dante congratulated the musician.

Dante's cellphone suddenly added to the cacophony. This time, Dante growled as he thumbed the 'Ignore' button. As he fought the phone as if trying to strangle it, the screen turned so that Angie was able to glimpse the caller i.d.

It read: "Dad."

Angie's eyes widened in shock.

The cowgirl waited until both boys had silenced their electronics, giving them scolding stares. Then, she continued cheerfully: "Most of you know me. I'm Ella Munroe. President of the Future Farmers Club, the Neighborhood Restoration Club, and the Hill Helpers. I'll be your guide as we explore the exciting world of alternative energy."

Joe coughed what sounded like "Cow crap".

Ella ignored him. "Who here is ready to save the world-"

Dante promptly raised his hand.

"-with new green technology?" Ella finished.

He lowered his hand just as quickly. "Sorry. Thought you meant something else. Like saving the world with a large bat…" Angie reached across the aisle and pinched him. "Oww, what?"

Ella nodded. "Okay, so why are you here, then?"

Dante was honest. "Academic probation and the need to save my hair from sadistic military barbers."

The musician laughed derisively. "Figures."

Ella fixed her attention on him. "What about you, Julio? Why did you sign up?"

Dante pulled a pair of drumsticks from his own backpack and began drumming on the back of Julio's seat while Julio answered Ella: "Extra credit."

This time, Dante made distinct butt-kissing noises directed Julio. The musician whirled and, for a moment, Angie feared he might actually take a swing at her friend.

Julio tried to grab the drumsticks, but Dante yanked them out of his reach. "You haven't changed at all, Dante!"

Angie grabbed Dante by the ear again and tugged him over to her side of the bus. "_What_ is your glitch today?" she hissed quietly. "You're acting more psycho than usual…and, for you, that's pretty psycho."

Ella was suddenly standing directly in front of Angie, Dante, and Julio, who abruptly quieted down. Big Joe made cow noises from his seat, and the girl whirled on him. "Shush it!" she commanded, not intimidated in the least that he was five inches taller and a good fifty pounds of muscle heavier than her. He blinked in surprise, but promptly shut up.

Satisfied, she turned to Shayne. "How about you-?"

"Shayne."

"Why did you join the trip?"

The artist blushed. "Me? I…um…just wanted to get out of Phys. Ed."

Dante smiled. "I love her even more…" He noticed Angie glaring again. "What?"

She shrugged, but the unhappy frown remained.

The cowgirl sulked. "Great. So no one cares that our current energy sources are polluting the atmosphere and rendering our planet uninhabitable. You all just wanted to skip class. Why do I bother?" She plunked herself down on one of the seats. "Let's just get this disaster over with."

A flash of light flooded the bus, blinding everyone on board. When they blinked the spots from their eyes, they saw a large vortex of orange and yellow materialize on the road directly in front of the bus. Only Angie and Dante knew what it meant, their fellow passengers only gaped in disbelief.

Angie gasped, "Is that…?"

Dante nodded. "Yep." It was a wormhole into the game realm…and the bus was headed right for it. He jumped to his feet, running toward the driver. "You have to turn the bus!"

Instead, the bus driver opened the door and jumped from the still-moving vehicle seconds before it-and the students remaining on board-vanished into the vortex.

Wyatt and Lyle were in Social Studies class when Wyatt's cell phone beeped a familiar warning. As discreetly as he could, Wyatt checked. The ap he had created displayed a warning.

Lyle looked at Wyatt and mouthed a question: "Leak?"

Wyatt shook his head, mouthing back: "Wormhole." After their run-in with Maldark's Hampire spy, he had upgraded his ap to scan for wormholes and vortexes along with game Leaks, afraid to have another monster catch them by surprise.

The teacher was oblivious to the pair until Wyatt raised his hand and waved urgently for her attention. "And so Cleopatra committed suicide by…yes, Mr. Black?"

"I need a Hall Pass. Those chimichangas the cafeteria served for lunch aren't sitting quite right."

Lyle jumped in. "Yeah, uh, could I get one of those hall passes, too? I…also ate the chimichangas."

The teacher gave them an indifferent wave. They scrambled for the door, pausing in the hallway to check the readout on Wyatt's cellphone.

"Where's it coming from?" Lyle asked.

Wyatt called up a map, which overlaid the beacon. "Five blocks north."

"We'll take my car. Should we call Dante?"

"We can't," Wyatt shook his head. "He's still on that field trip with Angie and Fred. We'll call him if we need him."

"Wait-what's going on up there?" Lyle slowed the car as they approach the location of the disturbance.

The wormhole signature, they learned upon arriving at the scene, was coming from an intersection bustling with activity. In fact, most of the intersection had been cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape by the police. The sight made the hair on the back of Wyatt's neck stand on end as all kinds of awful possibilities sprang to mind: _This was the heart of downtown Daventry Hills. It was impossible that the wormhole had gone unnoticed. Was there a monster running amok down the street? Was that what the police were doing? How were they going to explain themselves and their game-generated weapons?_

Then Wyatt saw something that made his stomach flip-flop in a surge of dread. "That's the bus driver!" He gestured to a man who sat on a curb while police questioned him.

"'Bus driver' as in Dante and Angie's bus driver?" Lyle's voice rose with alarm.

Wyatt nodded. "Pull over!"

Lyle parked the car a discreet distance from the commotion. The bus driver was waving his arms in agitation. It wasn't difficult to tell that he was agitated. Wyatt looked at Lyle. "We need to know what's he's saying. Can you…?"

"Got it." It wasn't easy to wield his game weapon within the confines of his sports car, but Lyle managed to maneuver it so that it was aimed in the direction of the driver. "_Herein hearhim._"

The scepter glowed and, seconds later, the driver's voice broadcast over the car's stereo speakers. "…and this black hole opened up right in front of the bus. I was thrown clear, but the bus was sucked in. I swear I'm not lying!"

The claim was met by muffled snickering. One policeman sighed. "We're going to need to perform a sobriety check…"

They'd both heard enough to know what had happened, but it was Wyatt who said it aloud: "Dante and Angie are in the game."

**3**

Reality as they knew it flipped on its ear with a single flash of light. One moment, the school bus was rolling along the city streets…

…the next minute, it was careening through a computer-generated hell.

When the bus driver bailed, Dante retained the presence of mind to jump into the abandoned driver's seat. It was far too late to avoid entering the wormhole, so he braced himself as the bus sailed through the event horizon and into the vortex. The next thing he knew, he was wrestling with the steering wheel as the bus bounced over virtual boulders and ruts in a dirt road which felt real enough as the jolting jarred every bone in his body. He heard the shrieks of the other passengers as they were thrown every which way by the wild ride. Finally, with some effort, he managed to find the brake.

He glanced out the window to see a computer-generated steel wall in the path of the bus. Reflexively, he crushed the pedal as hard as he could until the careening vehicle finally skidded to a stop inches from slamming into the barrier.

That's was the moment Dante caught a glimpse of their surroundings.

They were in some sort of bowl-shaped arena. Metal walls curved from the stone floor upwards, giving way to empty bleachers and finally to a transparent domed roof. Outside the arena, black clouds thundered and lightning split the sky in impressive computer animation. The floor of the arena, where the bus had landed, was dotted with barricades formed alternately of high walls and crisscrossed pikes. Crimson stains and the bones of various game creatures littered the arena, along with broken pieces of game weapons, shields, and ropes.

They were in the game. Dante already knew that much…and he had a sinking feeling he knew exactly where in Maldark's realm they had landed.

Muttered moans and the shuffling of people climbing to their feet drew his attention back to the other passengers. "Is everyone okay? Angie?"

She emerged from where she'd been wedged between two broken seats. "I'm okay."

Joe dabbed at a scrape on his forehead. His eyes were glazed with shock. "That did not just happen."

"You wanna bet, Jughead?" This from Julio. The words were directed at Joe, but his glare was fixed on Dante, as if wondering how to blame their situation on him.

Shayne stared at the impossible landscape outside the bus window, the blood draining from her face. "Ohmygod…what happened? Where are we?" She stared at her own hands, startling at their animated appearance. They felt like flesh and blood hands, and the bus seat seemed solid enough beneath her. She looked at Joe and saw the scrape on his forehead even dripped a smear of blood. "Why do we look like computer avatars?"

Dante finally checked his own reflection in the large rearview mirror. His animated face, with its exaggerated features and hair that was even more unruly in cartoon form, grinned back at him. "This is so cool…I'm an avatar."

Angie frowned. She didn't think the others fully grasped their situation yet, but, like Dante, she knew exactly where they were and how they'd got there. She had an unpleasant feeling of déjà vu. "This is _not_ cool…we're in the game, Dante!" she hissed quietly, not wanting to freak out the other passengers.

He was still grinning that semi-psychotic grin. "I know."

She tugged his ear, forcing him to turn away from his cartoon reflection and look at her. "I've been inside the game before. We can _die_ in the game."

"Nah…"

Angie debated choking him until he started taking the situation seriously, but decided their chances of surviving this rose from "nonexistent" to "slim" if they had the gamer geek's help.

Dante searched for their youngest passenger. "Fred? You okay?"

The boy peeked out from underneath a seat, pushing his glasses back on his nose. His eyes were wide and frightened. "Did we just get sucked into a transdimensional wormhole?" He let out a little cry when he finally caught sight of their surroundings and his own avatar form.

"I understood 'wormhole'…and yes," Dante answered, helping the boy out from his hiding place.

There were murmurs of disbelief from the rest of the group. Only Angie was resigned to the reality of their situation. "Maldark?" she asked him.

"Who else?"

Julio gaped at them like they were both bonkers. "Maldark as in _Conqueror of All Worlds_ Maldark? Maldark who is a computer game and not a real person?" He snorted, "You're seriously trying to tell us we're inside a computer game? You're still a complete headcase, Onterro."

"I ain't so sure about that, boy band," Ella retorted. It might be as difficult for her to believe it as it was for the others, but the class president and her little friend seemed pretty sure of themselves, so she would give them the benefit of the doubt. Certainly, she didn't have a better theory for what had happened.

Dante took two steps towards Julio before Angie put herself between the two boys. "Do you think Wyatt and Lyle know we're here?"

"Don't use real names anymore. Not in here. Avatar names only." Dante issued the warning to all of them. "You do _not_ want Maldark to know your identity I.R_._L. That would be bad. Really bad."

Shayne shook her head. "That's fine for you, but we don't have avatars or avatar names."

Ella asked, "You seem about two chapters ahead of us in this story. So, if you're right that this Maldark fella brought us here…then what does he want with us?"

A deep voice boomed, seeming to come from all directions at once. It was a voice meant to inspire terror with every syllable it spoke. "Sir Bickle, Knight of the clan, Never Fail, your presence is required in the Grimferno to negotiate the terms of battle."

Angie noticed that Dante finally looked nervous. "Oh, that's really, really bad…" he said to himself. She suddenly wished he would go back to being his normal cocky self. She had generally learned Dante never got nervous unless something Very Bad leaked from the game.

"Who's 'Sir Bickle'?" Shayne wanted to know.

"Yeah, that would be me." Dante moved towards the door, already half-certain he knew who—what-was waiting outside in that arena.

Angie grabbed his arm. "You're not going out there?"

"You'd rather they come in here?"

She hadn't thought of that. "Not so much…but you're not going out there alone."

"Would you just-?" Dante started to argue, but Angie pushed past him and jumped off the bus before he could say another word.

Outside the bus, with a better vantage point, Dante's gaze swept quickly around the arena. He saw no signs of an exit or any tunnels that might offer escape routes. The ceilings were too high to reach by climbing the rafters, and even if they did, the translucent roof was smooth and seamless. If he had his Skull Cracker, he might have been able to break it, but without his weapon…

_Never give up_, he reminded himself.

Angie spied Maldark, who silently watched from high up in the stands. He had not been the one to call out Dante. That challenge had come from the game monster that waited on the area floor. The creature was a Djinn. She knew enough about mythology to recognize that much. It had a blue-skinned human torso that was almost all bulging muscles and blue smoke where its legs should have been. Its eyes were black as ink. "I know Maldark. Who's the other creep?"

Dante glanced over his shoulder towards the bus. They were out of earshot of the rest of the group. The others were watching from the windows, staring with looks of fear at the computer monsters. He might have downplayed the situation for their sake, but with Angie, he didn't sugarcoat it: "That's a Grim Djinn…which means this is a Grimferno. He's part genie, part shapeshifter, which basically means he can turn himself into any monster that he wants. He watches you play the game, scopes out which baddies can kick your ass, then brings you here to his playground so he can turn into that monster and wipe you out."

The blue-skinned creature beckoned: "Come forward and state your terms of battle, Sir Bickle."

Angie raised an eyebrow. "There are 'terms'?" She was used to monsters coming at them head-on. This was something new. "Why got through all this trouble? Why doesn't he just wipe us out and get it over with?"

He shrugged. "They love the game more than the kill. Let me do the talking, completely serious. Grim Djinn's love to trick you if you aren't precise with your terms. He could promise to release you and then release you into a lake full of acid." Dante stepped in front of Angie, keeping one eye on Maldark in case he decided to jump in as they approached the Grim Djinn. He didn't move any closer to the creature than was absolutely necessary, but he squared his shoulders and met the Djinn's dark eyes, refusing to show fear.

The genie inclined his head in honorific greeting. "I am Grim Djinn, Master of the Grimferno and servant of the Lord Maldark."

It was important to follow the Grim Djinn's ceremony, Dante knew. Disrespect would only antagonize the monster and he could instantly choose to vaporize them all instead of granting them the chance to fight. "Sir Bickle of Never Fail Clan."

The Grim Djinn glanced to the girl behind Dante, waiting.

Angie blinked. "Who, me? I'm…" She hesitated. Never having played the game, she had no game avatar alter-ego.

Dante said the first thing that came to his mind: "Lady…Methane."

Angie freaked. "_What_? No…I'm not…wait!"

The Grim Djinn was already moving on with his ritual: "I am tasked with the extermination of all enemies of Lord Maldark. Are you familiar with the rules of the Grimferno, Sir Bickle?"

"I am."

Angie interrupted. "Well, I'm not…I want to know the rules."

The monster obliged: "We begin with the count of your warriors. I see seven in your ranks. Who else stands with your clan? Let them declare themselves now," he addressed the teenagers watching from the school bus.

Shayne and Ella exchanged nods. "We do," the blonde girl answered for both of them.

"Hi," Fred added nervously when the black eyes locked on him.

The trio glanced at Julio and Big Joe. Joe pointed crossed his arms and turned his back without uttering a word. Under their glares, Julio caved. "Fine. Me. I declare. Whatever."

Grim Djinn made note of their answers. "Do you speak for your Clan, Sir Bickle?"

Julio jumped up in his seat. "No! He doesn't-!"

"Shut it!" Angie snarled at him.

"Yes, I do," Dante said.

Again, the Grim Djinn was satisfied. "My terms are this: Our battle will consist of seven rounds, one for each of you. Anything within the arena may be used as a weapon. You may fight single-handedly or your clan may fight as one. You must destroy your opponent to win your round. For each round you win, I will release one of your clan. For each match that you fail to destroy your opponent, one of you must remain here as servant of Maldark until the day you die."

Angie calculated the odds that they'd win all seven rounds and didn't like them one bit. Judging by the look she saw on Dante's face, he wasn't much more optimistic. "What if we say no?" she asked.

"We don't say 'no'," Dante told her.

"Then I shall destroy all of you here and now with my honor intact, for I have granted you the chance to survive," the Grim Djinn answered with a smile.

"Fine. We lose a round, and after the battle, one of us stays here until we die. Agreed," Dante said. "Now, here are _my_ terms: One, when you 'release' us, you mean you send us back to _our_ world just _exactly_ as we were before you snatched us."

The Grim Djinn inclined his head in consent. "Agreed."

"Two, we choose who goes free when we win a match, not you."

"Agreed."

Angie was suddenly grateful that Dante was the one doing the negotiating. It would never have occurred to her to ask such a condition. Although she suspected Dante would be the last of their group that the Grim Djinn would set free, and she knew with certainty Dante intended to be the last to go, if the genie were to send him away after the first victory, the rest of them would almost certainly be dead.

"Three, we want weapons."

The Grim Djinn paused. "You may have what you brought with you into the Grimferno."

That didn't sound like such a good deal to Angie, but she saw Dante's mouth quirk in a smile. "Agreed. And the bus is a safe zone. You and your freaks don't go inside."

"Agreed. Those are the stipulations." The genie brought his hands together in a clap that resounded loud as thunder in the arena. "Let our combat begin."

Dante waved to Angie, but never took his eyes off the Grim Djinn. "Back to the bus, go."

She hurried, asking as they went, "What was all that?"

"Grim Djinns are tricky. You have to be specific with them. They may say something like 'I'll release you from the Grimferno', but when they release you, it's into a pit full of toilet snakes...or the cafeteria on 'Mystery Meat Monday'."

"Eww…do you think he'll keep his word, then?"

"He has to. Grim Djinns who break their word lose their powers forever." They climbed the steps of the bus, and Dante shut the door behind them (for whatever meager protection that would afford them).

The rest of their temporary game 'clan' greeted them with glares.

"We need to weapon up…everyone, empty your pockets and your backpacks, let's see what we've got…" Dante started emptying his backpack onto one of the seats.

"Wait just a minute-where are we and who is that freak and why are we…avatars?" Julio demanded.

Joe still sat, rocking back and forth and muttering repeatedly. "This is not happening…"

Ella stuck her finger in his face. "You got to get a hold of yourself, mister!"

Julio watched Dante work. "And said _you_ are in charge? I'm not taking orders from a neuron like you…"

"Listen to me: Dante is the only one here who knows how to beat Maldark's goons. Have any of you ever played an online game in your lives? Have any of you logged six hundred hours of game play in _Conqueror Of All Worlds_? Of course you haven't. Right, so you'd better do exactly as the nerd says or you're going to die."

"She's right. None of you are doing anything but running around panicking like itty bitty startled sheep. If the little fella has a plan, then I'm in." Ella helped Angie collect the rest of the backpacks and piled them on the seat by Dante.

Dante appreciated the support, if not the affectation. "'Little fella'?"

Angie made a face. "Oh, like that's worse than 'Lady Methane'. I cannot believe you named me after _cow farts_! And, you didn't answer my question: Do you think W-" Angie caught herself. Dante was right, the Grim Djinn could be listening. She had to be more careful about not using real life names. "-Black Death and Wizza know where we are?"

"The app was programmed to track Leaks, but Black Death retuned it to detect wormholes after that Hampire slipped by…so, maybe."

She hoped he was right. "And Black Death can track us here?"

Dante was more confident about that. "If there's a way, he'll figure it out. We just might have to hang here for a while."

"Fantastic." They were going to have to fight. There was no way around it. Angie frowned at the collection of items laid out on the bench seat. There was nothing among their few possessions that was going to take down a monster like Grim Djinn.

Fred moved to sit in the seat opposite Dante. He watched in silence for a couple minutes before quietly asking him: "Can you really get us out of here?"

Dante put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "I can kick Grim Djinn's butt; that much I know." He winked, and the boy managed a smile despite the apprehension in his eyes. "Come on, people, we've got to hurry. Let's see the loot!"

Ella apologized. "All I have is my notebook, but if I could get my hands on some of them broken vines and ropes out there, I could make a pretty good rope out of them."

Dante handed her the spare shirts he carried in his backpack. "What about these?"

She grinned. "I think I can work out a little something with these."

Shayne opened her satchel and shyly dumped out her sculpting tools. It was a collection of small detailing tools, wooden potters ribs, a wire clay cutter, a putty knife, needle and ribbon tools, and a metal scraper. The small tools didn't look like much of anything to the rest of the group, but Dante stared like he'd just hit the motherload.

He picked up the putty knife, the garrote-like wire cutter, and a small detailing tool that had a pointed blade at one end and a hook at the other. He whistled appreciatively. "Now, these'll do."

Angie didn't see how tiny blades that weren't much longer than her fingernail were going to help against the Grim Djinn…or how anything else in their hodgepodge of 'weapons' was going to save their necks. "What are we going to do with that?"

He held up a hand for silence and held out the putty knife almost reverently. "Wait for it. Remember your Glove of Schoolage?"

Angie remembered when Dante had given her that leather glove, her weapon against Maldark's monsters. It was booty that had been boosted from a game leak that the guys had barded. It hadn't looked like a weapon…until Angie put the glove on her hand and it transformed itself into a giant fist of pure steel.

As she watched, the putty knife in Dante's hand morphed into a full-on dagger that at least twelve inches long with a curved blade and a hilt etched with inhuman skulls. On the seat, the wire cutter sprouted jagged teeth that looked like they could bite through concrete, and the detailing tool became a javelin capped with a wicked hook.

"I am a fan of the Arts," Dante told Shayne, passing the blade to her. She favored him with a smile, beaming.

Ella had torn the shirts into strips. As she began braiding the strips together, the fabric solidified into thick, unbreakable cord. She let out a delighted whoop and eagerly set about adding to its length.

Joe's backpack was a treasure trove of items any good schoolyard bully needed: Cans of paint, a half-empty box of snap caps, marbles, all doused with rotten eggs that had been smashed during the bus' landing in the Grimferno. Dante went for the box of the tiny explosives.

"Snap caps…I cannot wait to see how these level up in here," he said, tucking them into his pocket.

Sulkng, Joe filled his pockets with what he could of the items Dante had left untouched.

Angie picked up her cell phone, and then Dante's, testing them. It wasn't exactly a surprise that the devices were useless inside the game. "These aren't working."

"Fine with me." The last thing Dante wanted to see that day was his phone. He searched the bus until he found his skateboard. He held up the board, waiting hopefully: "Come on, baby, upgrade for daddy…"

The board complied. With a sudden jolt the deck changed from wood to titanium, its edges grooved and lethal-looking. A dragon's eye design appeared at the center of the deck. When Dante rolled the board down the aisle, the now-spiked wheels sent sparks flying and tore grooves into the floor.

Even Joe was impressed. "Looks like something out of _Ghost Rider_."

Eager to try out the next weapon, Dante dug out his drumsticks. Obediently, they stretched into a mallet-shape, not quite as long or large as his Skull Cracker, but still impressive. He slammed one stick against the back of a bench seat. The mallet tore a hole clean through it.

"Not exactly a skull cracker, but the next best thing," he approved.

Fred stared in dismay at his own offerings, which was all of a calculator, thick textbooks, and a package of water balloon. "I haven't got anything," he apologized.

Dante gripped the boy's shoulder. "Not true, amigo…you have these…" He took the balloons and set them with the cans of paint from Joe's bag. "…which will go nicely with our friend's supplies. Let's fill some balloons."

Fred rolled his eyes. "You don't have to humor me. I'm still smarter than you, remember. Paint and a balloon against computer monsters?" He shoved the items aside. "I can't fight. I've never played video games…"

"Fred, come here." Dante waved for him to stand. "We're not going to let anything happen to you. I promise." The boy remained unconvinced, so Dante wracked his brain for another approach.

_Video games…_

"Look, I've seen you at the arcade breaking the high score on _Groovemaster_. You stick close to me, and if something comes at you, use some of those dance moves to dodge and weave. Try it."

Fred didn't move; he just stared at Dante.

"Try it," Dante insisted. When Fred still balked, Dante grabbed Julio's iPad.

"Hey!" Julio made a snatch for his computer, but Dante dodged him effortlessly. Julio had to settle for making a rude gesture at the back of Dante's head and slumping back into his seat.

"Here, use this for inspiration…just not any of _his_ music," Dante encouraged Fred. Music filled the bus. "Come on, give us some kung fu dancing. Fred, you're the best dancer in the arcade. Move." Still, the boy would not budged, partially from doubt and partially from the five pairs of eyes watching them. Dante could have cared less that they had an audience. What mattered was keeping Fred's spirits up. When the boy wouldn't start, Dante demonstrated some moves.

Feeling very much the world's biggest jackass, Fred finally mimicked Dante. He moved timidly at first, but became bolder when no one laughed. Momentarily, he forgot the monsters outside and moved at full speed…whereupon Dante took a few mock swings that didn't come anywhere close to connecting to the bobbing and weaving boy. Fred's wildly gesticulating arms knocked away Dante's hands. A couple minutes of the pseudo-combat, and the boy was grinning.

"See? Invincible," Dante nodded.

Julio snatched his iPad from Dante's hands, ruining that moment.

Angie watched the two boys exchange looks of death. She was already tired of playing referee with the pair of them. "I get why you're ditching your dad's phone calls…not that I agree with it…but, seriously, what is going on with you and that guy? Who is he?" she asked Dante.

He turned back to inspecting their arsenal and distributing weapons to the passengers. "Nobody. He's nobody. He's definitely not a back-stabbing, band-stealing, best friend-deserting _megacramp_." He raised his voice for that last word so that it resounded in the enclosed bus. "Definitely not that."

Julio didn't get a chance for a retort. In that instant, an explosion right outside the vehicle sent the school bus and its passengers flying.

**4**

Wyatt hated wasting the time it took to drive back to their warehouse headquarters, but staying at the scene of his friends' disappearance wasn't going to help. If he was going to have any chance of opening a wormhole and breaking them out of the game, he needed the equipment and the extra power that their benefactor, Max Ross, had spent months settling up in there.

Even with all Max's computers and billionaire toys to help, Wyatt had never attempted to pull anything as large as a school bus out of the game world…especially without knowing where inside the game it was hidden.

There were too many variables, and worry for what was happening to Dante and Angie with every second they lost driving to the warehouse was distracting Wyatt.

No, worry and hasty, ill-considered actions would do them no good. Dante might be a few cards short of a full deck, but few people played the game like he did. He'd defend the kids on that bus with the skill, zeal, and determination befitting his knight avatar. And Angie might not be a gamer, but she had learned a thing or two fighting game Leaks these past few months. If Maldark underestimated her, then he was making a big mistake.

Wyatt had to trust the two of them to stay alive in the game and keep the others alive, because he knew they were in there right now trusting him to find a way to rescue them. If he were to be of any help to his friends, he had to approach the situation like any other computer problem: Break it down into precise steps and tackle them one at a time…and don't panic.

So, while Lyle drove, Wyatt began working the problem, punching equations into his laptop and testing the firewalls of the game.

Wyatt was being too quiet, intent upon his laptop and the complicated streams of high-level computer coding that Lyle couldn't begin to follow. He felt marginally better having the techno-geek working on the problem, but Quiet Wyatt was a bad sign, Lyle knew. Quiet meant Wyatt didn't have the solution yet. But, just in case he was wrong, Lyle asked, "How are we going to find Dante and Angie inside the game?"

"It's a little like using a satellite to find one person on Earth when you don't know what city to search," Wyatt admitted, "especially when the satellite is controlled by an eccentric billionaire who doesn't want you to use it."

"You can get them out once we find them, can't you?"

"I'm doing my best, but Max keeps upgrading the firewall every time I hack the game specifically to keep me from doing things like opening wormholes." Wyatt made a growl of frustration at his laptop and instead pulled out his cellphone. He dialed a number Lyle recognized as Max Ross'. "And Max isn't answering. If I had an idea which of Maldark's goons grabbed them, I'd have a better idea where to look."

They had reached the warehouse. Wyatt collected his laptop and backpack and hurried inside, Lyle right behind him. They had a fleeting moment of hope that the creator of _Conqueror Of All Worlds_ might be inside the warehouse. Max sometimes hung out with them when he was installing new equipment for fighting game leaks, having one of his manic-depressive mood swings, or when he just didn't feel like being anyplace else. However, there was no sign of the billionaire when they entered their headquarters.

Wyatt set up shop at his computer station and resumed his efforts to track Dante and Angie's location. Lyle watched, unhappy about not being able to do something more constructive to help. If this were just a matter of tracking down a player's avatar in the game, Lyle could have used Wizza to-

_That was it. _Lyle had an inspiration. "Wait, maybe I can help."

While Wyatt worked from his computer station in the warehouse, Lyle took over Wyatt's laptop and queued up the game. Seconds later, he had his avatar, Wizza, ready to go.

"What are you doing?" Wyatt asked.

"I'm trying a _Seeing Eye_ spell…you can focus it on one avatar in the game so you can see what they see and hear what they hear so you can locate them. It's meant to help you sneak up on a rival player. If Dante and Angie are in the game, they're digital coding just like an avatar, so the spell should work on them, right?"

Wyatt pondered that and gave a shrug. "It's worth a try."

On the screen, Lyle's avatar raised its wizard's staff, preparing for the spell. "I can only use this on one of them…and it's going to make a third eye right in the middle of their forehead…so which one?"

"You mean which one of them isn't going to have a hairy freak out having a third eye in their forehead after already being turned into a computer-generated avatar by a game monster?" Wyatt rephrased the question.

_Okay, when Wyatt put it that way, it was kind of a no-brainer. _"Dante."

"I think he'll really enjoy that," Wyatt agreed.

Lyle donned his headset. On the computer screen, Wizza echoed Lyle's command, raising the Thunder Pole: "_Videns oculus ostendere me Dante_!"

A sphere appeared at the center of the screen. Images slowly formed within the sphere…images of the animated fire of an explosion, images of the bus as it rolled end-over-end and its passengers were tossed every which way. When the images stilled, Lyle and Wyatt saw the scorched windows of the school bus and a monstrous shadow passing outside the bus with inhuman speed.

"Ohmygod…" Lyle breathed.

For the second time, the bus careened across the Grim Djinn's arena. This time, it flipped onto its side before the rear section slammed into the field's wall with the horrible sounds of metal grinding against stone. The bus bounced off the barriers twice more before righting itself; and its momentum was finally halted. Broken glass rained on the passengers; dirt and sulfurous smoke poured in through the broken windows.

_How is it possible to be transformed into a game avatar and still feel every bump and bruise_? Angie wondered miserably, clinging to the legs of one bus seat to keep from being thrown around the cabin during the vehicle's wild ride. _For that matter, how could the smoke really stink like sulfur_? She almost gagged as the acrid smell assaulted her senses until, gradually, the smoke began to thin. Aside from the bumps and bruises, Angie didn't feel injured.

She pushed herself to her feet, squinting through the haze of dirt and smoke. "Is anyone hurt?"

There were groans and mumbled curses in answer, but all answered 'no' as they slowly climbed from behind and beneath the seats, dusting broken glass and torn bits cushion foam from their hair and clothing. Angie did a quick head count and came up with four. "Dante?"

A grumble answered from the demolished back seats: "Oh man, that sucked…"

When Dante emerged from behind a broken seat, rubbing at his aching forehead, Angie wasn't sure whether to be relieved or pissed off. Since her friend didn't appear to be otherwise hurt, she chose the latter. "What happened to the bus being a safe zone?"

He'd already figured out his mistake. "My fault-I said they couldn't come inside the bus. I should have told them that they couldn't _destroy_ it either."

"Yeah, way to use precise language there, Silvertongue," she scolded.

Julio whirled on Dante, all but screaming at him, "You're going to get us killed!"

"Yeah. You're the one those freaks want, so get out there! Why should we get our heads ripped off with you?" Joe added, until Ella reached over from her and smacked him not-so-lightly in the back of the head. He glared at her.

"You're not helping, sugar," she told him, arching an eyebrow to include Julio in her reprimand.

A shriek from close by-piercing, blood-curdling, inhuman-drowned out any further words. A shadow shot, quick as a flash, past the broken windows. Another cry followed, this one like a cackle of demented laughter.

Angie scrambled to find her Glove of Schoolage while Dante snatched up the dagger where it had fallen behind the driver's seat. Fred was right on Dante's heels. Whether it owed to familiarity with the game or borderline mental instability, the older boy was the only one of the group not losing his head. Fred felt safer sticking with him. The others took cover, flattening themselves against the floor of the bus.

"What was that?" Angie asked.

"I don't know. Why don't you go out and take a look?" Dante suggested.

"Funny."

Their attention focused on the side of the bus, where the shadow had appeared, they were unprepared when the windshield exploded inward. Something dark-robed and massive landed on the hood of the vehicle. A bony, leather-skinned hand snaked through the broken window. An equally ghoulish, decaying face followed the hand, baring sharp yellow fangs at them. When the creature wailed, its breath stank of rot.

The creature screamed.

So did the teenagers. So did Fred.

Still moving with blinding speed, the wispy arm reached for them and caught Fred by the back of his neck. The child didn't have time to utter a peep before the monster dragged him away.

Almost as quickly, Dante scrambled out the broken window in pursuit. "_Fred_!"

Angie wasn't far behind him. She paused only long enough to notice the others were not following. "Come on!"

They didn't so much as twitch. She didn't have time to shake them out of their panic, so she left them there.

Dante was standing behind the engine block, staring up towards the dome of the arena. Angie followed his gaze to the creature the Grim Djinn had conjured. It was a grisly, grotesque witch who looked comprised of rotting flesh. Shredded blood-red robes shrouded her misshapen form. She flew a broomstick formed from bones and hair, dragging a screaming Fred along for the ride.

Spying the two teenagers below, the witch changed her trajectory and dove straight towards Dante and Angie. Angie ducked behind the wheels. Dante gripped the large blade as if it were his Skull Cracker and put himself in the witch's path. When the creature skimmed just inches above his head, Dante swung the dagger, but missed when she veered away.

She let out another cackle at him.

Angie raised her iron fist, her eyes tracking the witch. "What is that thing?"

"A Baba Yaga. Grim Djinns always favor the classic mythological monsters," Dante answered.

"As in a child-eating witch?"

"Wow, impressive knowledge of mythology." Dante looked away from the witch and her prisoner just long enough to bump his shoulder against Angie's, his own way of showing approval.

To her surprise, the gesture made her feel the tiniest bit better. Taking a deep breath, she nodded. "All right. How do we get Fred back and bard her?"

That was the problem Dante had been working out. He studied the layout of the Grimferno from its pillars, its blast walls topped by crisscrossed pikes, and its bowl-shaped walls that were not unlike the half-pipes at the skate park. That gave him an idea.

He climbed back onto the bus, emerging seconds later with his souped-up skateboard and one of the mega-sized blast caps. He handed the cap to Angie. "If she tries to swallow Fred, distract her with this…but do _not_ hit me."

Angie frowned. "Why? Where are you going to be?"

Dante grinned. "I'm going to grab some air." With that, he climbed onto the skateboard and launched himself off the hood of the bus.

"Okay, great, I don't know what that means!" Angie called after him.

As Dante hoped, the curved walls were rather like the world's gnarliest, scariest skateboard park. Having been leveled-up by the arena, his board glided nearly as fast as the Baba Yaga was flying overhead. He was soon keeping pace with her easily. It would have been the most awesome ride ever if Dante hadn't been frightened for the witch's young prisoner.

The witch was looking rather hungrily at the child in her grip. Dante had to distract her. "Hey!"

Fred heard his shout. Terrified out of his wits, he twisted in the Baba Yaga's grip, trying to see him. Forgetting Dante's warning about names, forgetting everything except the desperate need for rescue, he cried: "Dante! Help!"

"Remember your moves, bud!" Dante called.

The child's brow furrowed in confusion.

The Baba Yaga finally realized she was being chased. The beast lowered her hideous head and shrieked a threat at Dante. The blast of her toxic death-breath hit him like a fist, making his eyes water. Blinded for a moment, he glided toward one of the walls of criss-crossed spears.

Fred cried a warning: "Watch out!"

Dante blinked, rubbing at his stinging eyes and trying not to fall as his board careened wildly. He saw the danger and managed to jump. The board cleared the points of the pikes by a hair's breadth.

Angie nearly had a massive coronary as her friend nearly impaled himself on the spiked wall. "You are scaring the hell out of me!" she yelled at him.

Undaunted, Dante angled the board and skated back into the path of the Baba Yaga.

Fred saw him coming at the witch head-on. Some still-rational corner of his mind warned him that he was as good as dead if he didn't do something-anything-to get away from the monster. Above the deafening pounding of his own heartbeat, he tried to make sense of Dante's instructions. _Moves? What moves?_

Then, all at once, Fred understood.

He kicked his legs, beginning to swing his body in something like the dance moves he used on the arcade game. The shifting of his weight threw the Baba Yaga off-balance, and the broom dipped mid-air. As she righted the broom, Fred kicked again, and once more they bobbed wildly.

_It was working._

The monster turned her head to screech at the child. Working not to panic, Fred twisted and somehow landed a kick to her misshapen nose.

Stunned, she lost control of her broom, which lost altitude…

…low enough that, when they passed above the bus, Angie threw a snap cap into the Baba Yaga's path.

The explosion was nowhere near enough to harm the monster or her prisoner, but the concussion disoriented her. When Fred gave one more mighty kick of his legs, he slipped from her grasp. He hit the dirt hard enough to make him gasp, and her grip had left scratches on his arm, but Fred was otherwise unharmed.

Distracted by the loss of her prey, the Baba Yaga failed to notice that she had sailed right into Dante's path. With all the speed the new skateboard could muster (which was quite a bit), he jumped at the witch and tackled her right off the broom. They hit the ground together.

He pushed away from the monster, scrambling to put enough distance between them to attack. She bared her pointed teeth, jaws opening to devour him. She screamed; Dante screamed right back at her. He raised the dagger. "Hasta la pasta, death breath!"

She charged. Dante was ready, putting every hour of game practice into play to time his strike. He swung the blade and lopped off the avatar's head in one strike. The Baba Yaga vanished in a cloud of blue smoke, her wail echoing in the arena.

The blue smoke floated to the stands above and swirled back into the form of the Grim Djinn. Maldark stared at the master of the Grimferno, displeasure at the prisoners' victory blazing in his black eyes.

From the bus, Angie called: "Dante! Get out of there!" He was still in the middle of the arena, reveling in their first victory, completely vulnerable if the Grim Djinn sent another monster after him or if Maldark decided to vaporize him instead.

"That was the sickest ride _ever_! You have got to try this board!" He retreated to duck behind the bus with Angie and Fred.

He was grinning like a kid at Disneyland. Angie could have smacked the smile off his face if his usual complete disregard for his own safety hadn't just saved Fred's life. Instead, she grabbed him by the collar and gave him a healthy couple of shakes. "You could've got yourself killed, Dante! This isn't a game."

"Actually, Angie, it _is_ a game…" he pointed out.

"You will _not_ leave me _alone_ in _here_ with _them_!" In one wave, she encompassed both the lurking monsters and the students in the bus, who were only just beginning to peek out from their hiding places. In case she hadn't made her point, she gave him one more shake before releasing her grip.

Dante waited out a little wave of dizziness. "Okay, dang! Chill! I told you, I know what I'm doing!"

"Fine! You know what you're doing…just make sure you clue me in from now on!"

Rolling his eyes at her, Dante turned his attention to the boy hiding by the bus. "Still in one piece, Fred?"

Ashen-faced, Fred dove at his rescuer, arms wrapping around Dante's waist with all the strength in his thin frame. Dante patted the boy's shoulder, encouraging: "Slick moves back there, bud."

"I'm sorry I used your name in front of the Grim Djinn," came a muffled apology.

A shadow of doubt darkened Dante's face, but only for a split-second. _No point getting upset about what can't be undone_. "It's all good."

That was when he noticed Angie staring at him, more precisely at his forehead. "What?"

Angie pointed to the spot right between Dante's eyes because, well, the space between his eyes suddenly glowed with a ball of green light. When the light faded, it left behind an almond-shaped spot. At first, the dark spot had looked like a smudge of dirt or a scrape from the fall from the skateboard. But, then, she could have sworn she saw the 'smudge' blink at her. "You've got a…a…right there."

Dante untangled himself from Fred's death grip and searched the area until he found one of the bus' rear view mirrors laying a few feet from the wrecked vehicle. He checked his reflection in the mirror, pushing aside his bangs from the dark spot on his forehead. "What the-?"

It was a third eye, partially hidden beneath the bangs, right in the middle of his animated forehead.

His grin promptly returned. "That is so cool…I'm a tri-cyclops!"

Angie and Fred backed away from him, staring at Dante as if…well, as if he'd just grown a third eye. "What is that? A spell? The witch-?" Angie asked nervously.

_A spell_! Dante suddenly knew the answer. "It's a Seeing Eye Spell. It's Wizza! He's looking for us!"

Angie muttered a small prayer of thanks. Dante climbed onto the hood of the bus, from which vantage point he could glance around the full length of the arena, including the stands where Maldark and the Grim Djinn prepared for round two. If the spell had worked, and he had faith it had, then Wyatt and Lyle were seeing everything that Dante was seeing.

"Guys, if you can hear me, we're in the Grimferno…" His gaze, and the gaze of the magical eye, lingered on the blue-skinned avatar above. "…and, oh yes, that's a Grim Djinn."

They could not hear the words, but all Wyatt and Lyle needed was one look at the blue-skinned avatar, half-man and half-smoke, to know who had taken their friends. They saw Angie and Fred, a bit scraped up but otherwise appearing unharmed. Since the images they saw were changing, moving as Dante moved, they knew he was also alive.

As the Seeing Eye fed Wyatt's computer images of what Dante was seeing, they watched as the arena began to reshape itself. Trees emerged from the floor of the Grimferno and grassy fields sprouted. The illusion of a cloudy sky hid the domed ceiling. Only the wooden walls with their crisscrossed pikes and the bits of armor and bones of former combatants remained. The arena might now have been a battlefield of medieval times, except for the charred, battered school bus lying amidst the rolling fields of grass. They recognized the place from the game-the Fields of Yasbaugh, nesting place of any number of deadly creatures.

The Grim Djinn was preparing for the next round of his game.

"Wyatt, if you're going to make that wormhole, do it fast," Lyle suggested.

**5**

"Now what's he doing?" Angie asked.

The group watched from the bus as the barren arena morphed in to green grass and forests so tranquil it could only be hiding something worse than the Baba Yaga.

"Psycho genie stuff…" Dante guessed.

Julio glared at him. "This is the kind of freaky-ass stuff you play on your computer? No wonder you're freaking warped, man…"

Dante's voice was saccharin camouflaging venom: "Tell you what, Boy Band, you just keep hiding under your seat and I'll ask the mean old djinn if he can hold you prisoner in a nice, safe Foo Pets game."

"Will you two knock it off?" Angie asked again.

The Grim Djinn surveyed his handiwork, finally satisfied. His task completed, the avatar turned its attention to the teenagers hiding inside the bus.

"Knight of Never Fail, come forward!" he commanded.

Dante snatched the baseball cap off Joe's head. "Sorry. Need to borrow this." Right now, their only ace in the hole was the fact that Wyatt and Lyle knew where they were. The last thing Dante wanted was for the Grim Djinn to spot the Seeing Eye on his forehead and spoil that advantage. He put the cap on backwards, hoping his friends could see through the mesh and bangs. _It'll have to do._

He hurried from the bus, afraid to keep the Djinn waiting again. He heard the hurried shuffle of footsteps following him and knew it was Angie. What surprised him was that the sound of several others' footsteps followed hers.

Dante met the Grim Djinn at what he guessed was the center of the transformed Grimferno. The creature nodded acknowledgment of defeat, but the djinn still smiled over the precious bit of information he'd won during his loss. "Sir Bickle…but not Bickle. Dante, Knight of Never Fail, you have won the first round of battle. By our terms of engagement, you may now choose one of your clan to go free."

True to his vow, the Grim Djinn clapped his hands and the wormhole reappeared. Dante didn't for one second entertain the idea of their group rushing into the portal together. The Grim Djinn would have made toast of them before they were halfway to the gate.

He waved to the ten-year-old, not needing to look to know the child was right behind him. "Time to hit the road, bud."

As Fred appeared at Dante's side, Julio protested. "Who said you get to decide?"

Ella frowned at him in disgust. "Are you serious? Of course Fred has to go!"

Shayne agreed. "He's just a kid!"

"I'm just saying we should decide together," Julio sulked.

Angie folded her arms, joining the other two girls in staring him down. "We can decide together when we fight together-you let Dante and me take on that Baba Yaga by ourselves. If you want a say, crawl out from under the seat and help us."

Dante glanced back to see their reactions. Their expressions ranged between shock, outrage, and shame.

Ella wore the latter expression. She dug at the virtual grass with her toe, her eyes downcast. "She's right. I said I was in, and I should've been there. Just tell me what you need me to do next time, and I'll do it." Brightening, she displayed a length of strips of cloth that she'd woven into a makeshift rope for them to see. "Look, just like I promised." As it had with their other 'weapons', the virtual world transformed her flimsy creation into a length of rope strong as steel. She grinned, delighted.

"Yeah, me too," Shayne seconded. She was not ashamed of her fear (she figured anyone with half a brain would need a few minutes to adjust to such an…improbable…predicament as this); she was only resolved that she would not give in to her fear next time. "That was amazing, what you did." She was staring at Dante in admiration. For his part, Dante took just a few seconds to enjoy having Shayne's attention.

"You know, I _did_ help with that witch, too…just in case anyone's keeping score," Angie grumbled under her breath, stomach knotting at the exchange.

The sarcasm was wasted on Dante. He didn't notice Angie's frown for several seconds, and only frowned right back when he did. "What?"

"Nothing."

The Grim Djinn boomed at them: "Make your choice or forfeit your chance."

Dante put one hand on Fred's shoulder and urged him towards the waiting wormhole. "That's you, Groovemaster."

Fred hesitated. "I want to stay. I want to help."

"Sorry, no can do, bud," Dante said. "I need you safe-you're my only hope of avoiding military school. I shave my head for no one."

The younger boy offered a wan smile. Still reluctant, he finally gave a single nod and stepped through the portal. He was gone before he could pause to look back.

"Okay, at least we know Dante and Angie are with the Grim Djinn…it's not great news, but at least it's not Maldark."

Assessing the situation, pouring over the facts, formulating a plan, all of that was what kept Wyatt calm despite the worry. The Seeing Eye was feeding them some information, although its usefulness was seriously hampered by the cover of the baseball cap and Dante's thick bangs.

The inability to communicate with their friends in the Grimferno was going to be a hindrance in coming up with a rescue plan. Wyatt's mind was already turning over that problem, and coming up empty at the moment.

Lyle paced the warehouse, pausing now and then to watch the obscured images on the computer screen. "You know Maldark's got to be pulling that djinn's strings. "

Wyatt knew. His fingers were flying over the computer keyboard, searching for any signs of abnormalities that might indicate real people transformed into computer coding. He had to find Dante and Angie's exact location among the coding before he could work on breeching the firewall and creating an exit for them.

_Maybe he couldn't attack this by coding. Maybe they had to approach it like any other quest in the game. How would Wyatt try to locate an adversary if he were playing the game?_ Once he thought about it in those terms, the answer was obvious: "We might be able to help. Do a tracing spell on the Grim Djinn; we can send Wizza to back them up."

Lyle grinned, liking that idea and glad to have something to do to help.

"I'm going to try to isolate the coding for Angie's cell phone, see if I can get a message to them."

The Grim Djinn had not yet reappeared. During the brief lull in the battle, the teenagers retreated to the school bus. All eyes watched the blue cloud that swirled above the arena for any sign of attack.

Something about the metal cocoon of the wrecked bus still gave Shayne some feeling of safety, despite knowing all the while that the monsters outside could rip open the vehicle any time and carry her away as easily as they had done with Fred. She'd given up hoping this was a nightmare. Now, she was clinging to the desperate—and fading-hope that they might miraculously find their way out of…wherever the hell they were.

So, she sought out the only person who seemed to be keeping his head while all others were losing theirs. Shayne thought it perfectly in keeping with her life in general that, at the moment, their best hope for survival was the goofy kid from art class who tasted every paint to see if the colors had different flavors and used the ends of the brushes like Q-Tips to clean inside his ears.

She slid onto the seat behind Dante's. She knew it was a dumb question, but still she asked him: "Is it over?"

The fact that Shayne, of all people, was actually speaking to him-to say nothing of sitting inches away from him and staring at him as if he was captain of the last lifeboat on the _Titanic_-sufficiently flustered him that he nearly didn't realized she'd asked a question. Dante hated to disappoint her. "Intermission before round two."

She slumped back in her seat, looking miserable. "We're going to die in here."

"Nah. My friends-my game clan-they know where we are. They'll think of something."

Shayne wanted to believe it, but her doubts prevailed. "They're outside. We're digital avatars inside a computer. What can they do?"

From her spot in the back of the bus, Angie could only hear snippets of the conversation, but she had a clear view of the pair. She felt that familiar and unexplainable knot in her stomach from the way the girl was making googly eyes at Dante. _Oh, puh-lese_…

Angie had kept the words to herself, but she heard the exact same words muttered aloud from the boy sitting across from her. She turned to see Julio utter a snort of derision clearly intended for Dante.

Fed up, she pounced defensively: "Okay, what is your problem? Dante just saved Fred's life. He's trying to keep us alive in here and you're being a colossal tool!" She tried to keep her voice down, but the anger came across loud and clear.

Julio rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well, I don't know what your story is lady, but having my life in Dante Onterro's hands is not exactly making me jump for joy."

Angie's eyes narrowed into a gaze that would have sent Wyatt, Lyle, or Dante running for cover had it been aimed in their direction. Julio just cocked an eyebrow back at her. "Why don't you give him a break and help instead of doling out the snark?"

"Why don't you stay out of it?" Julio snapped.

"Because it was you arguing with Dante that let that witch sneak up on us and almost got Fred eaten," Angie scolded, "and because Dante's my friend and you've been insulting him all day. That's _my_ job, not yours!"

Julio turned to face her. He leaned closer to stare directly into her eye, wanting the girl to internalize what he was about to say. "Listen, you seem…a little uptight, but basically nice. Let me give you some advice, 'cause I think I know him a whole lot better than you do." He glared again at the back of Dante's head. "We were best friends, hell we were like brothers, until his old man left. I tried sticking up for him just like you do. I tried helping him back then. I tried _a lot_. You think he's off the deep end now? You think that stunt he just pulled with that witch was some reckless shit? You weren't there for the attitude and the arrest and the whole bag of freak he opened up after his folks split up. He wouldn't listen to me, and I made a promise to myself that I wasn't going down with him. I'm not going down with him this time, either, so back off of me, lady! If you're smart, you'll get the hell away from him as fast as you can."

Angie blinked, the barrage of accusations leaving her momentarily stunned. It occurred to her, in that nanosecond, that she'd heard all kinds of gossip about Dante since coming to Daventry Hills High School, had heard the word 'criminal' tossed around from students whose opinions she generally gave a flying fig about, but until that moment it hadn't truly hit her that there might be truth to any of the rumors. Wyatt had even told her that the day he, Lyle, and Dante had met I.R.L., the first words the quarterback had uttered were "This _criminal_ and you?"

She'd heard Dante make bad jokes about his probation officers and his bad reputation, but somehow she had dismissed it as making light of false rumors. He'd talked about what happened to his mother after the divorce, but he'd never said a word about what the break-up had done to him. She had never thought "criminal" meant _criminal._

The last voice she wanted to hear at the moment spoke into the stunned silence: "You know, we're like two feet away inside a steel tube, so thanks for sharing with the group, Julio. Real nice."

Cringing, Angie turned to see Dante standing right behind her, his arms crossed. To her horror, every pair of eyes on the bus was staring in their direction, everyone on board having overheard Julio's tirade. Dante was frowning at Julio with an expression Angie had never seen on her friend's face before now-embarrassment.

Angie glanced back and forth between him and Julio, fumbling for something to say, her face flushing bright red. Dante wanted to tear into his ex-best friend, where the hell did Julio get off blabbing shit that was nobody's business…where did he get off shredding Dante in front of one of a very few people he actually trusted, who actually trusted him in return?

He wanted to, but what good would it do? Shaking his head in disgust, Dante turned and stormed out of the bus, thinking the Grim Djinn's monsters would make better company right then.

"Dante!" Angie shouted after him. "Great…we just completely humiliated one of my best friends. Thank you for that." She tossed the words over her shoulder at Julio as she hurried after her friend.

She found him standing in front of the battered vehicle, his back to her as he stared up at the ceiling of the arena. The lame apology she was about to offer was forgotten when Angie saw what had distracted Dante.

The blue-skinned creature circled overheard. When the two teenagers emerged from the bus, it let out a high-pitched roar and dove at them in a blur of scales and wings.

"Move!" Dante shoved Angie to the ground as the creature spit something in their direction. She saw a ball of gooey, sticky thread impact the side of the bus.

The teenagers still in the bus rushed to the windows at the sound of the roar outside, the need to see whatever was coming after them now stronger than fear. From their vantage, it was impossible to see what was out there.

Ella picked up her new rope and led the way to the door. She could have given a pig's eye whether Dante was a criminal, an honor student, a stoner, a lunatic, or a freaking roadie for Skillet; she was observant enough to know that the safest place in this bizarre, computer-generated freak show was right behind that boy and his dark-haired, spitfire gal pal.

Shayne was of the same opinion, because she was right on Ella's heels, picking up the drumsticks and blade. Julio and Joe did not budge from their seats.

"You boys coming or what?" Ella baited them.

Reluctantly, they followed…but only as far as the door.

Dante picked himself up off the ground, still trying to get a good look at the Grim Djinn's new form. As an afterthought, he turned the baseball cap backwards to uncover the Seeing Eye on his forehead so that Wyatt and Lyle could see what he was seeing. Someone shoved the blade and a snap cap into his hands. A sidelong glance told him it was Shayne. She and Ella moved to kneel beside him on the right while Angie, donning her Fist of Schoolage, stood to his left.

"What is it this time?" Angie asked.

Ella squinted at the creature as it zoomed overhead. "It's a dragon. I think."

It wasn't until the creature leveled itself for another pass that Dante got a good enough look to be sure. The monster was half-dragon, half-insect. In the game, it would have only been the size of a dragonfly, but the Grim Djinn had decided to level it up to a beast as big as a house.

"It's a Pyrausta," he said, like the word was going to have any meaning to non-gamers. The dragon-insect puffed its jaws to send another web at them. "Everyone _down_!"

The girls instantly flattened themselves against the grassy ground, covering their heads as Dante threw the snap cap as hard and as far as he could. The explosion forced the creature to change course as it took its shot. The sticky thread missed them by inches.

Julio had never left the bus, so he merely crouched beneath the driver's seat. Only Joe stood, unmoving, watching the creature.

Dante saw the danger as the Pyrausta set its sights on the hulking teenager. The blood drained from Joe's face as the beast roared at him. In panic, he did precisely the worst thing possible and tried to outrun the monster.

"Joe! Cover!" Dante shouted.

It was too late. The Pyrausta netted the boy with a ball of webbing like a spider trapping a fly. Towing its cocooned prize, who screamed all the while, the creature flew to tops of the trees of the arena and tied Joe to the support beams with its web.

Joe blinked, wide eyes taking in his predicament. He heard tiny squeals from somewhere to his left. The cocoon that mummified him made it nearly impossible to turn his head, but he managed the movement. What he saw elicited another scream of terror: There was a large nest tucked among the branches, and inside the nest were five Pyrausta hatchlings. The tiny dragon-insects bleated hungrily, their slimy, gawkish bodies wiggling towards the trapped boy.

Dante scratched his head as he stared up at Joe. "Okay, did anyone here _not_ fail the rope climb in phys. Ed.?" He asked the group.

Shayne stepped forward. "I used to climb trees with my brothers. I'll give it a try."

Dante traded her the blade for the drumsticks. "You can cut him out with this."

Ella offered her the rope. "Here, tie this around your waist. Me and Julio will lower you two down once you bust him out of that cocoon." She saw Julio peeking out the glass door of the bus and slapped her hand against the glass in front of his face. "Hey, Boy Band! If you don't get your keester out here in two seconds and make yourself useful, I'm gonna shave that hair off your head and weave myself a saddle blanket, darlin'."

Meekly, unhappily, he slinked out of the bus. He moved to join them, careful to keep Ella between himself and Dante. She fixed him with a look that said he'd damned well better not think of bailing on them.

Shayne stared hesitantly at the imposing height of the trees and the baby nightmares keening from the nest. Dante encouraged her "We'll keep thatthing off your backs…just climb really, _really_ fast."

He gestured to include Angie in his pledge. After the awkwardness in the bus, she was grateful for the nod and implicit trust.

"I got this." Shayne's expression was not as confident as her words, but she squared her shoulders in determination.

Dante and Angie broke cover, weapons ready, with simultaneous cries of: "Tulta Munille!" Dante pitched another snap cap at the dragon-insect. The explosion disoriented the Pyrausta and created a smoke screen. Using the cover, Shayne dashed across the arena and began free-climbing up the tree. Ella quickly followed, watching for the beast as she waited below. Julio grudgingly joined her there.

Dante and Angie lured the Pyrausta in the opposite direction, weaving behind the trees and diving behind the remaining barricades and pikes as the creature unleashed a volley of fire and webbing at them. Julio and Ella watched their game of cat-and-mouse with the blue-skinned monster.

Shayne nearly lost her grip on the tree. Barely catching herself before she fell, the let out an involuntary squeak of fear. Splinters dug into her hands. She paid no mind to the pain, thinking splinters were much better than going _splat_ on the arena floor. She was regretting every time she'd skipped phys ed and vowed never to miss class again.

Ella called to her: "Don't look down. You're doing fine."

Joe was almost eye-to-eye with the baby Pyraustas. Tiny, sharp teeth bit at the webbing, which was now miraculously protecting him from being devoured. He tried to discourage them by blowing into their faces. That seemed to only spur them on. One tried to bite the exposed tip of his nose. Joe turned his head out of reach. Nearly immobilized, he could not see how far away his rescuer was.

Desperately, he implored the carnivorous lizards, "I'm not part of this! You guys want Onterro, man! He's your 'archenemy'. Go eat him!"

Joe's words carried to the beast that chased Dante and Angie. The blue-skinned Pyrausta halted in mid-air. Dante could swear it smiled at him as it taunted in the Grim Djinn's voice: "Sir Bickle of Never Fail…but not Bickle. Dante Onterro."

Shayne couldn't believe her ears. She screamed at Joe: "You complete loser! I ought to leave you here!"

"No, please! Don't leave me! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" He begged until she finally began sawing through the webbing with the blade.

"Well 'sorry' ain't gonna undo it!" Ella said.

"I'm sorry!" Joe repeated.

Dante had no time to dread the fact that Maldark's henchman now knew his full name I.R.L. The Pyrausta had renewed its pursuit with vigor, knocking down walls and barricades faster than Dante and Angie could hide behind them. Dante turned and threw another snap cap, but the dragon-insect was ready this time and batted the sphere away with its tail. The explosive landed by a pike-topped wall. The concussion didn't quite bring down the barricade, merely toppled it so that it slanted at an awkward angle.

It gave Dante an idea.

He caught Angie's shoulder, waving to the damaged barricade. "…plan, I have a plan! See that wall that's half-falling down?"

"Yeah."

"When I give you the signal, use your glove and knock it all the way down."

Angie tried to fathom his plan, but trying to follow Dante-logic was a little like jumping down the rabbit hole into Wonderland...scary and surreal. Therefore, she simply asked, "What's the signal?"

"Probably me screaming like a giant dragon is ripping out my intestines," he answered.

She nodded agreement and headed for the damaged wall. Dante ran in the opposite direction, luring the Pyrausta.

Overhead, Shayne reached Joe just in time to stab one of the baby dragon-insects as it snapped at his exposed eyes. The tiny beast vanished in a shower of sparks and smoke. It was tricky keeping her grip on the branches and cutting him free of the webbing, and she had to stop several times as the remaining lizard babies flew at her face, baring their fangs. Each one exploded as she drove the blade into their hearts. When the last one was barded, Shayne was finally free to cut Joe out of the cocoon.

She tied the rope around herself and the boy. Joe clung to the girl, almost weeping with relief. "Thankyouthankyouthankyou…"

Poised behind the wobbling barricade, Angie watched Dante lead the Pyrausta around the arena. Several times, the dragon-insect nearly struck him with its balls of webbing. At one point, Dante tripped face-first over one of the skulls that littered the arena. He barely managed to roll onto his back and swing the drumstick baton to bat away the Pyrausta before it bit him in half.

Recovering quickly, he was up and running again, heading straight for Angie and the damaged wall. "Now, Angie!"

She slammed her Fist of Schoolage into the base of the barrier. The wood splintered and the wall groaned as it resumed its slow fall. Heading right at it, the Pyrausta behind him, Dante feinted aside at the last possible second to avoid being crushed by the falling pikes and timbers. The dragon-insect was too large and had too much momentum to change its course quickly. It slammed into the tumbling barricade, impaling itself on the pikes atop the wall.

The Pyrausta exploded into smoke and sparks.

Angie pumped her fist with a joyful cry, "Yes, yes, _yes_!" She allowed herself just a minute to revel in their victory, fist-bumping Dante, whose grin matched her own.

The Grim Djinn rematerialized almost at once. He made no move to interfere or attack as Shayne and Joe were lowered from the rafters, or when Dante and Angie ran to join the rest of their group.

Neither Dante nor Angie said a word of rebuke to Joe, but Shayne and Ella still fumed.

The Grim Djinn boomed: "Sir Bickle…but not Bickle…Dante Onterro, Knight of Never Fail, you have won the freedom of another of your warriors."

Shayne nodded,"'Warriors'." She decided she liked the honorific very much.

Angie whispered to Dante, "He knows your name."

"What's done is done," he shrugged. There was no point freaking out about the Grim Djinn possibly tracking him down in the real world when there was no guarantee they'd survive this virtual world.

Ella raised an eyebrow in disapproval at Joe, who avoided her gaze. "Can we kick Captain No Stones off the island?"

"Hey, excuse me for having a moment of stress when baby dragons were _eating my frickin' face_!" Joe defended himself.

Dante settled it: "Angie or Ella or Shayne."

Angie didn't know if he seriously expected her to bail, but just in case, she crossed her arms and refused to move. "I'm not going anywhere."

"It ain't gonna be me. I haven't had a crack at that blue-skinned cramp yet." Ella didn't know if it was possible to psych-out a computer-generated monster. Just in case, Ella cracked her knuckles and grinned at the Grim Djinn with the same "life-as-you-know-it-is-over" smirk she'd given her boyfriend when he'd sneaked around behind her back with her sister.

"Guess it's me, then. You guys be careful." Shayne was no more eager to go than Fred had been. As the Grim Djinn opened the portal, she reluctantly passed the blade back to Dante. When he reached to take the weapon, Shayne grabbed his wrist and tugged him closer. She leaned forward and quickly kissed him on the cheek. "I'll say this: You really know how to show a girl a-strange and disturbing time. I'll see you in art class?"

_Nope. She wouldn't. She'd see the weird kid who never finished a project and taste-tested the paste for quality assurance. And she'd still make sure to sit on the opposite end of the classroom. But, it was a nice thought, at least._ Dante didn't correct her out loud. He stepped back and watched as, somewhat self-consciously, she ducked through the portal. It swirled shut behind her.

He felt the familiar intuition of a woman glowering at the back of his head. When he turned, he saw Angie was giving him almost the same glare Ella had just given the Grim Djinn. _Wasn't he the one who was supposed to be pissed off here? What the hell had he done to earn the 'Angie Look of Death' this time? _

"Seriously, _what_?" Dante asked her.

In her usual way (which drove him absolutely nuts), she shook her head and evasively answered, "Nothing."

Maldark's face was a thundercloud as the Grim Djinn returned to him. "I should not have entrusted this task to such a worthless rot. You have been defeated twice now by those pathetic creatures and you have failed to rid me of that bothersome insect!"

"I have uncovered the true identity of your enemy," the Grim Djinn bowed low to the grassy ground, supplicating.

His master backhanded the genie across the face. "Am I sending him a Christmas card, you fool? I care nothing what he calls himself in his own realm! That was not your mission."

The Grim Djinn tried again to calm him. "You can use his identity to track down the rest of his clan."

Maldark screamed with such fury that the virtual animals of the Grimferno forest fled from the area. "I want him _dead_! Perhaps I erred in trusting you with that task. If you want your freedom, do as I've commanded: Kill him."


	2. Chapter 2

_AN: I still don't own "Level Up" or any of its characters. I just have fun with them. I hope you are enjoying the story._

**6**

His master left, the demand-and the unspoken promise of what would happen if the Grim Djinn failed-still ringing in the genie's ears. Disgraced, livid, in fear for his own existence, the genie cast his powers once again over his private battlefield. The Grimferno shook as grass and dirt became swamp water and the dank, noxious odor of decay. He breathed in the stench of death with satisfaction. _Let it herald the end of his enemy…_

In a puff of blue smoke, Grim Djinn took a new form.

Wyatt hung up his phone on his fifth attempt to contact Max. "He's still not answering. That means he either unblocked my caller id block and he knows it's us or he's accidentally locked himself in his sensory deprivation chamber again." He turned his attention back to hacking the firewall of Max's game, fingers flying over his laptop computer.

Lyle concentrated on the large screen, where half of the display showed his Wizza avatar chased the glowing sphere of fire it had conjured.

The smaller screen-within-a-screen still fed them images from the Seeing Eye of the continuing battle inside Grimferno. Lyle and Wyatt were trying not to look, trying to concentrate on their task instead of letting worry and the feeling of helplessness distract them. The only thing they could do to help their friends was for Lyle to get Wizza to the Grimferno so they could lock down Dante and Angie's location and Wyatt to get a portal open.

Lyle's eyes were still drawn anyway, just for a second, to the inset screen. All he saw at the moment were wisps of bangs and the sullen-looking dark-haired boy. From what Lyle could tell, it looked like the kid was in some king of argument with Dante, staring almost directly into the Seeing Eye on the gamer's forehead. Dante must have yelled something back, because the dark-haired boy's mouth shut and his face flushed bright red.

_Guess everyone's nerves are shot in there._ Lyle hoped Angie and Dante could hold it together for a few more minutes. They'd already had enough close calls to make Wyatt and Lyle bite their nails just watching on the screen.

"How's that portal coming?" Lyle asked Wyatt, his voice calm and steady even if Lyle felt anything but calm or steady.

"Almost got it. How's Wizza doing?" Wyatt returned.

Lyle checked his avatar's progress. The fire sphere was shrinking. The closer it got to Dante and Angie, the smaller the sphere would become until it finally would disappear when it found them. It was shrinking, but not as quickly as Lyle would have liked.

"Getting there," he said.

He'd managed to scavenge enough plastic bags from the group to safely wrap up his iPad. However, Julio was still miserable as he slogged through the dank water that now covered the floor of the arena, feeling it soak into his shoes and socks. Even the bus had flooded, and they'd all placed their belongings on the seats to keep them dry. Dante had already instructed them to leave their shoes on despite the discomfort, warning that there could be more of the genie's critters unseen beneath the stagnant water. It galled Julio to admit (if only to himself) that the little cramp wasn't doing half bad at fending off the freakish monsters in this virtual hell.

_It didn't change anything. The Grim-whatever-he-was could call Dante a knight, Dante and that irritating gal friend of his might buy into it, but that didn't make it true. He might have the Ella and Shayne and Fred fooled into thinking they could count on him, but sooner or later, when it was his own neck on the line, he'd ditch them to save his own neck and they'd learn. _Julio felt sorry for them already.

Still, he knew he owed Dante an apology for what went down on the bus, and he knew Dante would be his normal, obnoxious self and in no way make it easy on him. Julio kicked, taking his frustration out on the swamp water.

Dante was alone at the front of the bus, wringing swamp water out of his ever-present pocket handkerchief. If Julio wanted to apologize without an audience, it was now or never. He wasn't sure if Dante didn't see him approach or was simply ignoring him. Clearing his throat, Julio forced out the words: "Hey, about what happened…"

"No reality talk in the game," Dante interrupted, working on the soggy rag and still not looking at Julio.

Julio counted to three, summoning his patience, and tried again. "I'm just trying to say…what I said to Angie on the bus, I know it wasn't cool to tell her…"

Dante finally looked at him. "What? The truth? That I'm the biggest screw up freak boy in Daventry Hills. It's not exactly a secret. I think I actually won the title in one of those suppository poles in the school paper."

"_Superlative_ poles, Dante, and the biggest freak boy in Daventry Hills is the creepy guy who hangs out in the Baskin Robbins feeding pecan ice cream to his Pygmy Marmoset, Jo Jo."

"Oh, him? That's just Max."

Julio blinked. _Had Dante actually just joked with him or was he still avoiding the subject_? "can't you let me apologize? You know, if you'd just give people a chance instead of this crazy shit you do…" He took a deep breath, refusing to let his ex-best friend push his buttons like this. "I know you blame everything that happened back then on me, but you were being a complete tool!"

"_I_ was the tool?"

Julio didn't back down. "I was trying to help you! Who let you hide out at his house when your folks were fighting? Me! Who backed you up whenever you picked fights with kids at school and at the skate park because you were really pissed off at your old man? Me! Hell, who kept Barbara from finding out about half the trouble you got into?"

Dante's sarcastic grin and matching tone returned. "_You_! And who made my band split up? You! That was _super_ helpful. It gave me time for all my nasty old criminal pursuits, plus I got to work on my novel."

"That isn't what I meant…and, by the way, Durasmell was _our_ band. You were the one who was being the control freak wanting to write all the lyrics and make all the decisions, dude. I mean, how many songs about paternal betrayal did you think we could stand before we ran for the hills? We weren't freaking Everclear!" Julio shouted.

Dante paused. "Okay, that's a fair point. I was in a phase."

Julio scoffed at that. "What 'phase'? Pre-nuthouse? Pre-juvy hall?"

"Hey, I did _not_ go to any nuthouse. It was court-ordered counseling for anger management issues."

"Have you even talked to your dad since the divorce?" Julio blurted.

_Mistake._ Julio knew it at once. He'd crossed a forbidden line, and Dante shut down faster than a computer in a power outage. Julio could almost see his mental shields snap back in place.

"I don't need to talk to people who completely betray me. Speaking of which-" Dante did his best to turn and storm off, which wasn't easy when he was wading in hip-deep swamp water.

Julio grabbed his arm and spun him around. He had one more thing to say. "You still don't think of anyone but yourself. You haven't changed, Dante!"

Dante shook off his arm. "And you don't know anything about me anymore!"

A rumble they now all recognized as the roar heralding the Grim Djinn's next game cut off whatever else Dante had to say. Still fuming, he made himself forget Julio, forget everything except their current mess. He took what was becoming his customary spot at the front of their group and watched the swirling cloud of blue smoke as it glided around the trees, approaching them.

"Such defiance," the Grim Djinn toyed with them. "You will learn to fear me. I will learn what terrifies you."

A shape began to emerge from the smoke…

When their next challenger appeared, Angie had to work hard not to laugh. She had expected another fearsome, gigantic, mythological creature. What emerged from the smoke was one of the last things she expected. "Is that a chicken?"

Dante was not laughing. If Wyatt and Lyle could see this with the Seeing Eye back at H.Q., he knew they were not laughing either.

Wyatt tried to discern the hazy figure that moved through the blue smoke. Indeed, he was not laughing when he saw what the Grim Djinn had conjured this time. "Oh no, that's a-"

Lyle saw the deceptive, seemingly harmless chicken hybrid. "That's a Cockatrice."

Wyatt turned back to his computer, the picture of concentration. Eventually, he let out a whoop of triumph, "I think I've got the portal ready!"

Lyle breathed a quick prayer of thanks for nerds with mad hacking skills. "It's about damn time, Wyatt!"

"Yeah, yeah, just get me a lock on their location, Wizza," Wyatt reminded him.

It was Lyle's turn. Tearing his gaze from the battle, Lyle returned his attention to his avatar. Seconds felt like hours as the tracking sphere closed in on the Grim Djinn's playground.

Dante pulled Angie towards the cover of the school bus, watching the mutant the whole time. Grim Djinn had skewed his Cockatrice more towards rooster form than dragon, but that didn't make it less dangerous. "Move! Move! Run! Find something to use as shield! Don't let that thing spit on you no matter what!"

Ella and Julio scrambled for something to use as shields. They came up with broken sections of barricade and bark stripped from the trees. Only Joe raised an eyebrow. "It's a chicken. What's dangerous about chicken spit?"

"What was dangerous about Pyrausta spit?" Ella reminded him.

Shuddering, Joe decided to find his own shield. He ripped a hubcap off one of the bus wheels.

Dante explained. "It's not a chicken. It's a Cockatrice. Its spit is poisonous. Me and Black Death and Wizza have fought that thing three times." He found pieces of barricade wall for himself and Angie.

"So, you've fought it. How did you kill it?" Angie asked.

"Actually, it killed us. Three times," he admitted. Maldark and Grim Djinn had definitely been doing their homework on Never Fail…especially on the battles they'd lost.

"Oh great," Julio grumbled.

The Cockatrice alighted on the hood of the school bus and hocked a ball of purple spit right at Dante and Angie. They dove into the swamp's waters and swam as fast as they could for the tree line. Ella, Joe, and Julio followed.

Angie popped up behind a fallen log, spitting out swamp water. "That's just nasty," she said of the Cockatrice bile and the stagnant swamp water she'd almost swallowed.

The Grim Cockatrice momentarily lost sight of its prey. It let out a wail so high-pitched that the teenagers clamped their hands over their ears for fear their ear drums would explode.

"Plug your ears with Kleenex or something! No kidding, that screeching will melt your brains!" Dante said.

Angie didn't bother to point out that any Kleenex they might have had was soaked beyond use when the arena had transformed itself into a marshland. She started ripping up Dante's discarded handkerchief instead and passed the strips around to the others.

Ella studied the movements of the Cockatrice. The critter had wings, but they didn't seem to be doing it much good. The chicken-dragon seemed to prefer hopping to flying. It had a tail that split into a V at its end, and it thrashed that tail pretty well. It would knock them senseless if it struck them. And, if the little fella said that the spit was dangerous, Ella would take his word for it.

If it didn't like to fly, she reasoned, it might be vulnerable to attack from above. She shook Dante's shoulder to get his attention and yelled so he could hear her (his ears being stuffed with handkerchief strips). "Can that critter climb?"

"Climb? I doubt it. Fly? Possibly."

Ella decided to give her plan a try anyway. Raising her tree-bark shield, she took her rope and started climbing the nearest tree. The Cockatrice tried to stop her with another ball of bile. She batted it away with her shield. The monster jumped, trying to catch her leg in its beak. She used the shield again, this time to whack it on the head. Screeching, stunned, it hopped away from her. Finally, she was high up in the branches, and the chicken-beast didn't seem to be following.

"Works for me," Dante said, following her up the tree.

The others did the same, deflecting the Cockatrice with drumsticks, blades, fists, and shields. Julio shouted to Dante, "Tell me you at least have an _idea_ how to kill it?"

"I'm working on it!" he shouted back.

Miraculously, the tracking sphere the led Lyle's avatar through the virtual world finally stopped. It hovered above what resembled nothing more than a mound of dirt in the middle of a computer-generated desert.

"Got it! You _cannot_ hide from me, you blue-skinned pit-sniffer!" Lyle whooped.

Wyatt wasted no time in swiftly typing commands into his computer. Seconds later, the familiar rainbow-colored wormhole opened before them. On the screen, they saw the other end of the portal materialize at the center of the virtual battlefield.

The swamp water boiled; light shone from beneath its depths. All eyes-including the Grim Cockatrice's-turned to the wormhole that had appeared in the middle of the swamp.

"NO!" the monster wailed.

Remembering that the last such portal had trapped them in this computerized nightmare, Ella, Julio, and Joe shrank away from the vortex, trying to climb higher into the branches. Dante waved them back. "No, it's okay! That's a wormhole! That's Wy-Black Death! We can jump!"

The Cockatrice's eyes turned blood red. "_The terms of battle will be honored_!"

The force of its cry, the strength of its rage, shook the Grimferno from floor to ceiling. The swamp waters churned as the ground quaked. Dirt and mortar fell from a roof camouflaged as grey sky. The trees where the teenagers had taken refuge swayed and began to crack. They clung to the branches with all their strength; but the more the monster sounded its high-pitched wail, the more violently the arena and every structure within was battered.

Ella lost her grip and began to plunge towards the swamp and the waiting beast below. Joe's hand shot out and caught her by the wrist. "I've got you!"

A massive crack appeared in the tree that Dante, Angie, and Julio had climbed. The tree began to splinter as the break snaked its way up to the branches where they had perched. Before they could do anything about it, the tree cracked and fell into the water.

Dante and Angie jumped clear of the timbers and plunged beneath the bubbling swamp. Angie felt her shield torn from her grip by the vortex-generated undertow. She could not keep hold on it and swim back to the surface at the same time, so she reluctantly let it go. Her head finally rose above the waves. She spat out a mouthful of the foul water.

Something hit the top of her head, not hard enough to injure but sufficient to make her look up. Pieces of ceiling were raining down on her…a particularly large chunk breaking off and plunging her way as she watched.

"Angie!" She heard Dante call her name. She saw him bobbing in the chest-deep waves a few feet from her. He tossed his shield to her. It was a broken section of the barricade that had impaled the Pyrausta. To her surprise, the timbers held up against the barrage of mortar, saving her from being brained or crushed (or both).

Dante craned his neck, trying to see where Julio had fallen. He made his way along the length of the fallen tree. He found his friend pinned beneath the broken branches, having to cling to the trunk just to hold his head above the swirling swamp waters. Blood oozed from a nasty cut on his head. Dante had seen (and experienced firsthand) enough skateboard injuries to know that such a wound usually came with a concussion to match.

"Julio!" He wound his way through the tangle of branches until he reached the other boy. Gripping his shoulders, Dante carefully moved Julio to a more secure position half-lying across the tree trunk.

Julio's eyes slid open at the call of his name. He squinted blearily at the shadowy figure hovering over him, pulling him up out of the water. His eyes widened slightly when he saw exactly who had come to his aide.

"Magician! Trickster!" He shouted at the unseen wizard who had conjured the vortex. Grim Djinn knew that, somehow, that the rest of the clan Never Fail was behind the appearance of the wormhole. That meant they were watching. He did not know how they'd managed such a trick, but he would not have their interference in the game. The terms of battle had already been set. They would be honored or Grim Djinn would be free to eliminate Sir Bickle and every pathetic human in the arena. "Remove your portal or I will bring death down upon them before a single one escapes!"

Virtual creatures abandoned the trees with cries of distress as the timbers swayed and cracked and finally fell towards the teenagers below. More debris rained down from the crumbling stone walls and roof. The swamp's water churned as it was sucked into the vortex Wyatt had created.

"Watch out!" Dante shouted as the bellowing of the Grim Cockatrice nearly shook the arena to its foundation. He threw himself over Julio, shielding the injured teenager as best his could from the onslaught. His hand accidentally struck the iPad that was wedged among the tree limbs.

Music-though that might have been a generous description of the shrill tones-blasted from the iPad. As soon as Dante's hand switched on the device, the computer immediately leveled itself up into a sound system that could drown out the cries of the Cockatrice. The music and off-key warbling of the singers did just that...and the Cockatrice fell silent. It recoiled from Dante and Julio as the inhuman sound from the device sent spikes of pain from its ear slits through the rest of its body.

The words, and the vehemence of the threat, carried through the vortex to resound in Never Fail's headquarters. The storage unit shook, and Wyatt had to snatch at his laptop to keep it from bouncing off the tabletop as the ground began to shake.

He watched the image of the Grim Cockatrice as its cries began to bring down the roof of the Grimferno. There was no way for Dante or Angie or any of the trapped teenagers to reach the vortex without being struck by the flying debris. If they were lucky, one or two of them would get to the wormhole before the arena collapsed onto the others.

_Grim Djinn's not going let them out until they finish the game_. Wyatt resigned himself to this. He would have to find another way to help his friends.

All he could do to help them at the moment was shut down the portal.

Angie almost startled Dante out of his skin when she suddenly surfaced beside him. Her mouth was moving, but he couldn't make out the words. She gave him that familiar glare and reached out to pull the shreds of handkerchief out of his ears.

"Get the Kleenex out of your ears! Did you see what happened when Julio's…er, music…blasted?" Angie pointed to where the chicken-dragon hopped, shaking its feathery head and letting out deafening wails that now sounded distressed. "The music is so bad it's actually hurting that thing!"

Dante would have known that music anywhere, but he still could not believe it had come from Julio's iPad until he checked for himself to confirm it. He raised an eyebrow at Julio. "It's Durasmell."

Julio shrugged, somewhat abashed. "Yeah, well, I always did like that band..."

To his surprise, Dante grinned and extended his fist. A smile slowly spreading across his own face, Julio weakly reached back and returned the fist bump.

"That's right…I remember Black Death said something about the Cockatrice being vulnerable to the sound of Cockerels. Durasmell must sound like a Cockerel," Dante solved the mystery.

Angie would have tapped her foot if it wasn't hidden beneath the water. She settled for an irritated frown. "You can remember vulnerabilities of obscure mythical creatures in an online game, but state capitols, U.S. Presidents, and my _birthday_, you forget?"

"I got you a present!" Dante reminded her.

"A half a pack of gum. From your locker. Two weeks after my birthday."

"We're doing this _now_? Really?"

"Guys!" Julio interrupted the pair. He gestured frantically to the Cockatrice as it made another charge at them.

Climbing up onto the tree trunk, Dante raised the iPad and let the music blast full volume. Angie clapped her hands over her ears, thinking that the ear-piercing cries of the chicken-beast were more tolerable than the 'music' assaulting her ears.

The Cockatrice paused, shaking its head as if trying to shake the noise out of its ears. It backed away from Dante with another wail of pain. He advanced on it, keeping the computer pointed at the beast. The Cockatrice began to convulse, fluttered its wings in a futile attempt to fly, to escape the attack. Finally, it turned its head and screamed into Dante's face as spasms wracked its body.

In a last attempt to save itself, the Cockatrice opened its mouth and spat a mouthful of its bile at the trio. The next second, the creature was gone in a puff of blue smoke, its deafening cries finally silent.

Angie submerged herself, holding the shield above her head-and over the pinned Julio as much as she could-just in case the water did not protect her. Julio ducked between the branches, feebly trying to cover his face with his arm.

Dante had no place to go.

He was too far from the nearest tree or barricade wall to reach either in time. Instinct told him to go into the water. If the iPad fell into the swamp and short-circuited, they were screwed. All he could do was try to spin out of the path of the bile and turn his back and his face to the Cockatrice.

He almost made it.

Almost except for the impact of the beast's venom on his jacket and the bare skin of the outstretched hand that held the iPad.

Dead silence fell over Never Fail's headquarters. Frozen by horror, Lyle and Wyatt stared at the screen and the image of purple ooze splashing across Dante's hand and absorbing instantly into his skin.

"That did not just happen," Lyle hoped, prayed, wished…and knew better.

**7**

Dante moved.

Shedding the slime-doused jacket, he dove back into the swamp water. His hand was already starting to burn like a bitch, telling him what he already knew-it was too late. He scrubbed the Cockatrice's spit from his skin anyway, for all the good that would do. The first streaks of dark purple were already appearing on the back of his hand. _Twenty real-time minutes of play. That's what he would have left if he was on his computer and his avatar was hit with Cockatrice poison. Twenty minutes before his avatar was fragged. How did that work when _he _was the avatar? _

He heard Angie call his name, followed by the sound of someone jumping into the water right behind him. Dante could almost feel her reaching out to try to help, so he yelled, more harshly than he'd meant to: "Don't touch me! The poison travels by skin contact just the same as by saliva."

She was silent. When he finally turned to face her, Angie's face was pale. She stood, rooted to the spot, staring at him in shock.

He regretted snapping at her, but he'd at least made his point. "Are you hit?"

Her brain finally kick-starting out of its shock, Angie raised the shield in her hand. It was battered, but free of the deadly slime. "I'm fine."

"Julio?"

"He's fine." Angie had already checked on the others. "They're fine. Bumps and scratches."

Dante nodded. _Good. That was good. That was something…that was almost worth it. _

…_except that the Grim Djinn wasn't done with them. _He had less than twenty minutes to get the rest of them out of the Grimferno alive.

Wyatt was used to setback in the game. He loved the intellectual challenge of figuring out ways to keep his avatar alive in impossible circumstances. The bigger the virtual mess, the bigger the intellectual stimulation of solving the problem. At the moment, watching poison spreading across one of his best friend's skin and stuck on the wrong side of the portal to do anything about it, Wyatt's mind was blank.

"Wyatt!" Lyle grabbed his shoulder, shaking him out of his daze.

"Sorry, what?"

Lyle had resumed his pacing. The movement calmed him down, cleared his panic-stricken mind, which was threatening to shut down on him completely. "We have to do something," he stated the obvious.

"What…how…" Wyatt stammered.

"Wyatt!" Lyle raised his voice. Now was not the time for their resident genius to go into one of his brain-lock loops. "Think! Come on-okay, listen…stick with me on this: It's not Dante. It's Sir Bickle. It's just an avatar. You with me?"

Wyatt nodded, looking unconvinced.

Lyle worked the problem aloud: "It's just an avatar. We're just playing another round of the game. Think: His avatar is doused with Cockatrice poison. We have time…but it's still twenty minutes to game over. What's our side quest? What does Black Death do? What does Wizza do? What cures Cockatrice-"

The trick worked…on Lyle. As he spoke, he suddenly knew exactly what he would do if this were a game quest. "Bolbard's Garden!"

"Bolbard…" Wyatt tried to recall that character.

"Bolbard the Alchemist. The Elixir of Nightfrost. It cures any poison." Lyle slid back into his seat at the game console, already queuing up Wizza.

Wyatt was catching on fast. "If we find the elixir, I can open another wormhole to bring it out of the game." He turned back to his laptop, grateful to have something useful to do again. "And then we bring Dante out of the game." His face darkened. "The only problem is Bolbard's about two levels higher than Wizza or Black Death right now…and we have to catch a yellow-finned sand weasel to ride to his garden. That's about ten hours of play time minimum. Plus, the last time we fought him, he beat us down about ten game levels."

Lyle put a hand on Wyatt's shoulder somberly. "Wyatt, it's time to use the code."

The computer geek sucked air through his teeth, making a hissing noise. "The cheat code."

He, Lyle, and Dante had blackmailed Max into providing a cheat code that could take them anywhere in the 'Conqueror Of All Worlds' game in exchange for saving the game's creator when a level six Grubu headhunter had leaked from the game and tried to add Max to his collection. During the rescue, Wyatt had taken three blow darts tipped with paralysis poison right in the left butt cheek (making most of the left side of his body numb for two days), Lyle's hair had been turned a bright shade of green by one of the Leak's curses, and Dante had a face full of voodoo powder thrown right in his face, which had left him unable to sleep for two full days as well as given him weird, paranoid hallucinations about being chased by forest sprites and mud people (it had been interesting trying to keep Barbara from noticing).

The cheat code came with two stipulations: It would not take them anywhere near Maldark (thus making it useless to try to use it to get into the Grimferno) and it would only work one time. Therefore, the boys had been saving the code for only the most dire of game emergencies.

_This definitely qualified as a most dire emergency,_ Wyatt agreed. He nodded once to Lyle in answer. In fact, he saw one flaw in their strategy. "Yeah…so, how do we tell Dante and Angie the plan?"

"You have won the freedom of another of your clan. But if you attempt to escape again before our tournament is complete, know that you will all perish." The warning emanated from the blue cloud that was the Grim Djinn. There was a blast of light, and the portal reappeared.

Angie, Ella, and Joe had worked to carefully pull Julio out from beneath the branches. Unable to lend a hand when he was unable to touch any of them without poisoning them, Dante stood watch a few feet away, keeping an eye on the Grim Djinn.

Ella kneeled beside Julio, examining him. She knew a little first aid from her Red Cross classes and years of patching up injuries back on her family's farm. She knew the look of someone who'd got their bell rung by a blow to the head and came to the same conclusion Dante had already reached. "Boy band here's got a concussion. It has to be him."

Angie had a wildly different opinion. "Dante's poisoned!"

She was right, and Ella had the grace not to argue. But they were already surviving by the skin of their teeth in this game. She'd never ask anyone to stay, knowing they were dying, to save her own life. However, Ella saw the chances of the rest of them making it out alive going right down the toilet without Dante's help.

Dante stated the obvious: "By a mythological creature in an online game. I can't go to the hospital, and they don't sell antidotes for that at Walgreens."

Joe challenged Angie: "Weren't you the one who said we were going to die in here without the nerd?"

Angie ignored him, more concerned about her friend. "You're not going to stand here and do nothing!" She saw the way Dante looked at his now-purple hand and the way he was staring at the semi-conscious Julio. There was no indecision in his brown eyes. She knew that look. She'd seen it the first time Never Fail had faced Maldark, when Wyatt, Lyle, and Dante had nearly let themselves be blown up to stop the warlock. Dante had already made up his mind.

Angie wanted to grab him by his shoulders and shake some sense into that thick skull of his, but that was out of the question. Instead, she circled around to stand in front of him. Particularly, she looked into the Seeing Eye on his forehead. "Wy-Black Death! I know you know what's going on. You've got to figure this out! Hurry up!" She didn't know if Wyatt and Lyle could hear her, but she was damned sure they'd get the gist of it from her threatening glare if nothing else.

Still, none of them had expected a response. So, all eyes turned in surprise when the phone in Angie's pocket beeped. She frowned at it. _How could her cell phone possibly work inside the game?_

Reading the message, Angie felt the first flutter of hope since they'd arrived in the game. "Black Death says he and Wizza are going to find something called the 'Elixir of Nightfrost'. Sheesh, who thinks up these hokey names?" Angie thumbed the keys to her phone. _Wyatt, how are you doing this?_

_I opened a trans-dimensional wormhole into the game. I can hack into your Android, even if it is digital coding instead of wires and plastic. Easy._

Angie made a face at the phone. "Show off."

"Bolbard's Garden. That's clever," Dante muttered to himself.

Wyatt sent another message. Angie passed it along, "Black Death wants to know what the 'terms of battle' you set with the Grim Djinn."

"Tell him."

It took her a few minutes to type the reply, mindful of Dante's warning to use precise language. Seconds later, the phone beeped another message. "They want you to come out of the game," Angie read. She stared at him, trying to be intimidating with that bossy stare she'd perfected. But, her hand trembled almost imperceptibly, and the bravado she wanted to show didn't quite reach her eyes.

The Grim Djinn commanded from above: "Make your choice."

Angie and Dante were having a stare down. The others waited.

"They don't have the cure yet. I still have time," Dante placated her.

"You'd better know what you're doing." Angie sighed, not the least bit happy and answered the genie. "Julio."

Their course decided, Ella, Angie, and Joe came alongside Julio and helped him to his feet. The movement gave him a rush of dizziness, which he waited out. He blinked, trying to get his swimming vision to focus on Dante. "You picked a helluva time to get…"

"Sane? Selfless?" Dante supplied. He held up the iPad, which had turned purple with contamination from the Cockatrice spit. It was smoking and the speakers were so demolished that the music sounded like someone gargling. "I think we borked you warranty."

Julio shrugged, taking one last listen to the garbled Durasmell music. "I still like that band."

Automatically, Dante started to reach out his hand for one more fist bump, until he caught sight of his purple flesh and quickly pulled back. He had to settle for exchanging one last nod with his old friend.

Limping towards the portal, Julio smiled weakly at Angie. "Got to admit, whoever that Never Fail clan of his is IRL, you're right, they've been good for him. He's not the psycho he used to be."

She raised an eyebrow. "Wait a second, let me get this straight-you're saying _our_ Dante, the one who ate a car seat cover on a dare and has a bag of his own toe nail clippings, is _sane_ Dante?"

Julio winked at her as he stepped through the portal. "Take care of the psycho for me."

The wormhole barely winked out of existence before the ground began to shake. Ella rolled her eyes. "Here we go again," she said as the arena began its next transformation.

Whatever they were expecting, it was not to find themselves in a replica of Daventry Hills High School, particularly the sprawling fields and blacktop used for sports and torturous afternoons of physical education class. The remaining barricades even morphed into handball courts and the trees into tetherball poles and basketball backboards and nets. It might have been a perfect recreation of their school if the sky overhead was not blood red with purple clouds. The battered, smoking school bus was tossed around as the swamp water drained away, landing upside down in the center of the football field.

The blue cloud that was the Grim Djinn emerged from the bank of purple overhead. "I grow weary of defeat, Sir Bickle, and you have betrayed your true weakness. Let it be your undoing…"

Dante was unimpressed. "Drama queen."

The column of blue smoke twisted and moved like a snake towards the quartet of teenagers, picking up speed as it approached. They scattered, but Joe wasn't fast enough to outrun it when the blue smoke zeroed in on him.

The Grim Djinn swept up Joe into the cloud of smoke. The contact instantly turned Joe's skin blue. As he yelled, his body began to contort: Three horns protruded from his forehead first. Then his teeth sharpened into fangs and his fingernails into sharp claws. He grew two more arms, rippling with super-hero (or super-villain) grade muscles. He stooped as a superfluous hump grew from his back. His cries became roars. As the smoke set him back upon his feet, he turned red eyes to stare at Dante, Angie, and Ella.

He licked his lips.

"Okay, does anyone notice something a little different about Joe?" Dante cracked.

Angie backed away from the new Joe. "How did the Grim Djinn do that?"

Dante explained, "A Grafting Spell…merges one avatar with another."

The Grim Djinn's voice came from Joe's mouth: "In reward for your courage, Sir Dante, I gift you with the chance to destroy your betrayer."

It took a second before Dante realized Grim Djinn was referring to Joe blurting out his true identity back with the Pyrausta.

Grim Joe cracked his knuckles and advanced on the trio, who continued to back away from him.

Ella had the drumsticks in one hand and her rope in the other. She wasn't confident about using either one. "If we did whack ol' Joe here in cartoon hell, does that mean he would die, what do you call it, 'IRL'?"

"Maybe the better question is: If Joe eats us in the game are we still dessert IRL?" Dante answered, gripping the blade. The purple toxins on his hand spread to the weapon.

"Well, we're not going to take that chance. We can't bard Joe," Angie said. Despite her words, she still raised her Fist of Schoolage.

They ran for one of the backboards. Lumbering after them, Joe roared and then ripped the backboard in half with a single swipe of his clawed fingers. They barely moved out of the way before the board crashed to the pavement.

It would have been the coolest thing Dante had seen…if it didn't bring to mind the image of Joe doing the same thing to them. "Got to say, I'm a little okay with taking that chance."

Joe pursued them across the quad, not stopping until Angie took a tetherball and slammed it with all her might into his blue face. The blow stunned him long enough for the trio to put some distance between themselves and their transformed friend.

"Nice shot," Dante and Ella both complimented.

"I still got this." Ella stepped forward, swinging the rope. "I'm pretty sure I can hog-tie him. I was a champion bulldogger back in Galt."

She tried. For a few seconds, it seemed like the amped up rope might indeed hold Grim Joe. Then the superhuman muscles of his arms flexed and snapped the ropes like dried out rubber bands. He grinned malevolently, froth still dripping from the corner of his mouth.

Ella wasn't about to be shown up by the genie. _Gonna need something stronger_. Her gaze fell on the swinging tetherball and its chain. Remembering how everything else they had touched in the Grimferno had 'leveled up', Ella figured the chain shouldn't be any different. She nodded. "That'll do it. Dante, give me a hand."

She held out the chain, gesturing to the blade in his hand. Dante stared at the weapon. The hilt was already purple, but the blade itself still shone pure metal. There was a chance it wouldn't spread the contagion to the chain Ella was holding. Still, he cautioned her, "Okay, watch out. If that chain starts turning purple, you let go."

"Gotcha," Ella agreed.

The blade severed the chain in a single stroke, with no signs of contamination. Ella was exceedingly pleased when the metal links grew thicker and more substantial. _That's more like it._

"Angie, knock him on his butt," Dante ordered.

She lifted her fist and slammed it down on the blacktop, just as she'd seen Dante do with the Skull Cracker dozens of times. The impact sent a rolling earthquake across the pavement to Grim Joe, tossing him onto his backside.

Angie ran at Grim Joe, tackling him like a linebacker. Ella was right behind her, throwing the chain like a lasso. It wrapped around Joe's outstretched ankle. Swiftly, she tied his other foot and both his hands with the chain and secured it to the pole.

Dante moved to give what help he could without touching them. He took two steps before a suddenly wave of dizziness nearly made him stumble. Rolling up his sleeve, he saw the purple toxin had already made its way from his hands to his elbows. He cursed under his breath.

"Dante!" Angie called.

He moved as close to them as he dared and smirked at the squirming Grim Joe. "First rule of playground survival: Avoid the tetherball court. It's just good sense."

The Grim Djinn was equally amused, for Joe's lips curled into a sneer. "Is this the best you can do? Weakness indeed, Sir Dante. Your betrayer is at your mercy. I see the venom coursing in your veins. I know the Cockatrice poison burns in your skin. You could destroy him with a touch, and yet you stay your hand?"

"Now he's just pissing me off," Dante muttered. "We've got you. Let him go."

The genie laughed derisively. "Our terms of engagement are clear, Sir Dante. If you do not destroy your opponent, you do not win this round."

Angie and Ella looked at Dante for confirmation, a fresh surge of dread filling them both.

_Yeah, those were the exact terms they had agreed upon. _ Dante's smirk vanished."Crap."

"What do we do?" Angie asked him.

The words were hard for him to say. "We lose."

**8**

Quite satisfied with the turning of the tide of battle, the Grim Djinn still smiled as he released Joe. The teenager instantly reverted to his true (albeit still animated) form. Humiliated at having been used against the others, Joe was silent and sullen as Ella unchained him.

He looked so miserable that she almost felt sorry for the boy, lunkhead and bully that he was I.R.L. She tried teasing him a little. "Kind of liked you the other way-you had that whole Hank McCoy/Beast action going."

Joe perked up a bit. "You like comic books?"

She gave him a look that said it was a ridiculous question. "Who doesn't like comic books? 'Course, I was always partial to _Fantastic Four._"

Picking himself up off the pavement, Joe made a face at her. "Instead of _X-Men_? What, are you nuts or do you just have lousy taste?"

"Don't make me put this chain back on you, sugar," she answered.

The Grim Djinn gloated above them. "You stand defeated," he reminded them.

Dante refused to be baited. "By my count, it's Never Fail: 3, Genie With The Big Bad Breath:1-asterisk-with an assist. The 'terms of battle' were _us_ versus _you_."

Angie added: "You cheated! You only beat us because you took a player who was supposed to be on our team. That wasn't a fair fight. Where's your 'honor'?"

A rumble of thunder and a flash of lightning bespoke the Grim Djinn's displeasure with the accusation. "Oh, don't make the crazy genie mad, girl," Joe asked.

"That one…" The genie pointed at Joe. "…failed to declare himself a combatant for your clan at the beginning of the match, nor has he assisted in your previous battles. Without being a clear ally of yours, it was my right to claim him to fight for me. Therefore, my victory stands as does my honor. Do not insult me again, mortal."

"Well, he's declaring himself for our team now!" Ella elbowed Joe in the ribs. "Man up!"

Joe gave her a dirty look. "Um…that's right. Go Team Neverland."

The Grim Djinn commanded,"You will choose one of your clan to remain in the Grimferno."

Dante answered at once. It was a decision he'd made the first moment that he and the Grim Djinn set their terms of battle. "Me."

Angie started to say something, but Dante cut her off. "I'm the reason we're here. I'm the one Maldark wants."

The Grim Djinn stretched out his hand and a tendril of smoke snaked toward Dante just as it had when Joe was taken. "Then come…"

Dante backed away, reminding the genie: "Uh-uh. No, no, no…if you recall, our _terms_ were that I had to stay in the Grimferno _after_ the engagement until I the day I die. The battle isn't over, so I'm not going anywhere yet."

The Grim Djinn was forced to comply or forfeit the game. The smoke, and the genie, withdrew from the mock high school yard. "So be it."

Angie started to grab Dante's arm. He twisted out of her reach, the sudden movement causing another wave of dizziness. "I'm not joking, Angie, you can't touch me! The poison spreads through touch, too."

"Why did you do that? Black Death is going to have that antidote, soon."

"Do you want to stay here if Freaktown forever? Do you want to leave Ella or Joe here? Grim Djinn already knows who I am IRL. If I leave, I'll just lead him to you guys…to my mom."

_Damn it, did he not get that this wasn't jumping in front of a hockey puck to save Wyatt from getting his nose broken or being the first one to test slide down a wormhole?_ _No way, no way would she sit back and let him give up, resign himself to dying in this virtual hellhole._ "You are not expendable, Dante! When are you going to get that through your thick skull?"

"Listen—"

"No! Don't!" Angie nearly poked him in the chest before she remembered his warning. "You'd better figure a way around these stupid 'terms of battle', because if you stay, I stay."

"Why are you being a—"

"If the next words out of your mouth aren't some form of 'practical' or 'smart', I'll-"

Joe asked Ella, "What is with those two? They dating or something?"

Ella had grown so accustomed to the group's moments of bickering that she was no longer paying attention. She was searching the pseudo-skyline for the next sign of the Grim Djinn. When she spied him, he was casting his net of blue smoke across the overturned school bus.

Dante and Angie were still arguing, so Ella whistled for their attention. She pointed to the genie. "What's he doing now?"

As they watched, their belongings were pulled from the school bus and spilled across the grassy field. The Grim Djinn zeroed in on Dante's backpack. The pack opened itself and a piece of paper fluttered from the bag into the genie's waiting hand.

Knowing he carried everything from changes of underwear to additions for his Spores of the World collection, Angie was afraid to ask, "Dante, what did he just steal from your backpack?"

"That's the brochure and application for Coventry Military Academy," he recognized it.

"_Application_?"

Joe had other concerns. "What's he want with pictures of a military school?"

The answer was quick in coming. Another quake, another crash of thunder and the public high school reshaped itself into a military-style obstacle course. The pavement beneath their feet became a platform that lifted the quartet high above the arena floor. The ground split until a moat of lava encircled their platform. Beyond the molten rock, there was a stretch of empty field. After that was quicksand and bubbling tar pits. Holes in the ground blasted geysers of steam and water at random intervals. The only ways across were writhing walls of rope, monkey bars that looped and inverted like a rollercoaster, and bridges that looked too safe to actually be safe. Four zip lines and trolleys waited for the teenagers and stretched from their platform to the empty field on the other side of the lava moat.

Angie had seen enough. "Yeah, I'm not going out there."

The platform beneath their feet jerked and then began to shrink. "Wanna bet?" Ella contradicted her.

At the far end of the obstacle course, the Grim Djinn waited, dressed like the drill sergeants from the pamphlet. He beckoned to the teenagers in challenge. "Face me if you dare."

Bolbard's Lair reminded Wyatt of an old Scottish castle on a moor…with a touch of Dracula's castle added in for effect. The cheat code had deposited the Black Death and Wizza avatars at the outer wall of the alchemist's garden. Most of the garden was concealed behind walls formed in equal parts of river rock and avatar skulls. The vegetation that was visible over the wall was sickly hues of gray, purple, and black, and Wyatt was sure some of the plants stared down at the avatars will human eyes and animal fangs. Skeleton birds hopped along the top of the wall. Those that strayed too near the plants were snared by vines and eaten.

"Cozy," Wyatt said, his words repeated by his avatar on the computer screen. "You have a plan, Wizza?"

Lyle rolled his shoulders, loosening up for the fight. "Bust down the wall, take the antidote, get Dante and Angie, call it a day."

"Works for me." Wyatt keyed in commands, selecting the setting on Black Death's Blast-A-Ton 2.0 weapon that would effectively vaporize the garden wall. "Just one thing-when we open the wormhole to take that potion, we're going to have an HQ full of Bolbard's gnomes and only two of us…"

"One thing at a time." Wizza raised his own Thunder Pole, poised for the fight. "Soon as they start coming, you break left, I'll take right. Ready? Let's knock on the door."

Black Death fired his gun. A large bubble popped from the weapon and floated with deceptive delicacy towards the stone wall. When it popped, it sprayed acid across the mortar, melting a large hole through the barrier.

The plants in the garden shrieked inhuman cries of alarm. There was the warning buzz of insects-dozens of them-and a swarm of exploding bees poured from the garden and dove at Black Death and Wizza. Black Death dove to the left, out of their path. Wizza stood before the oncoming insects and raised his weapon.

"_Lentum charta_!" the avatar cried in Lyle's voice.

The weapon flashed and a sheet of fly paper the size of a two-story house appeared between the wizard character and the attacking swarm. There were too many for the paper to catch all of them…until a large mouth formed at the center of the paper and swallowed most of the swarm. The bees exploded within the paper, which let out a belch of smoke.

Wyatt couldn't resist: "Spicy."

The next wave of monsters wasn't far behind.

Lyle warned, "Gnomes!" Creatures that indeed resembled lawn gnomes...had the gnomes been pumped up on steroids and then turned into zombies…lumbered through the hole in the wall. They let out screeches, donned their ridiculous pointed caps, and charged at the intruders.

Joe's eyes gleamed at the Grim Drill Sergeant. If the genie had tried to pick something that was right up the athlete's alley, he couldn't have made a better choice. "My dad was a colonel in the Marines. He had us run courses like this soon before we were old enough to crawl. Mind if I take the lead this time?" Joe asked the others.

The girls shook their heads and Dante backed up a step, waving Joe to the front of the shrinking platform. "Be my guest."

Joe hurriedly showed them how to work the zip line trolleys. They were not worried about the lines being a trap. The Grim Djinn wanted to play. He wasn't going to let them drop into a lake of lava before the real fun began.

Dante blinked spots from his vision as he concentrated on the trolley. Angie hooked into the line beside his. She glanced sidelong at him. "What did you mean that was an application?"

"It's pretty self-explanatory."

"But, I thought your mom was letting you stay?"

"Yeah…as long as I don't fail any of my classes or get brought home by the police again," he answered as he checked his trolley line.

_That's why Wyatt had Fred tutoring Dante_, Angie realized. "You jerk, why didn't you tell me? She hasn't sent in the application yet?"

He shook his head. "You know, you really pick weird times to have these big conversations. Kinda need to focus on not falling into the river of lava right now."

She let the subject drop for now, but made a mental note to come back to it when this ordeal was over. Angie checked her own trolley and line quickly, keeping one eye on the diminishing platform. Despite the tense set of her shoulders, she offered him a grin. "Want to say it together?"

He returned the grin. "Absolutely."

They pushed off the platform with the familiar shout of, "Tulta Munille!" To their surprise, Ella and Joe joined them in the battle cry this time.

They sailed over the moat of lava to the relative safety of the dry ground on the other side. As the landed, a vent in the ground released a blast of steam right at Ella. More startled than burned, she instinctively stepped back, losing her footing. Joe grabbed her arm before she fell down the slope into the lava.

"You all right?" he asked.

Wide-eyed and pale, she managed to nod.

They waited for Joe to survey the terrain. "Never trust an empty field," he thought aloud. There was something about the deceptively barren field that raised the hairs on the back of his neck. Joe patted his pockets and brightened when he found the bag of marbles he'd stuffed there when Dante had raided his backpack.

When he took one of the marbles from the bag, the sphere suddenly leveled up to the size and weight of a bowling ball. With no difficulty at all, Joe pitched the ball onto the field.

An explosion blasted the ball into confetti.

Joe nodded. It was just what he'd suspected."Minefield."

"No kidding," Dante cracked.

Joe set about taking every bowling ball-sized marble from the bag and tossing them onto the minefield. Having once been a shot putter in junior high and a baseball player as far back as he could remember, Joe had no trouble landing the orbs almost precisely where he meant to. The others ducked and covered as explosion after explosion rang and debris flew every which way. It took only a couple of minutes for Joe to complete his task. By the time he was done, everyone's ears were ringing and a safe path across the minefield had been created.

"That'll clear your sinuses!" Joe rubbed his ringing ears.

"In the same way that losing your head will cure a nosebleed," Ella said.

In the distance, the Grim Drill Sergeant beckoned once more. With a wordless shout, Joe charged towards him.

The minefield sloped downward to a large pool of bubbling mud. Barbed wire stretched over the ooze. Joe dove beneath the wire and began crawling on his belly through the mud to reach the other side. It was just like the drills his father had made him run for years and years.

Ella was set to follow, but Angie wrinkled her nose at the foul dirt. "I don't think so. Dante?"

"I'm on it." He stepped up with the blade and made quick work of slicing through the sharp wire. He tried to ignore the fact that simply bending over was making his stomach churn. The contamination had finally turned the metal blade a deep violet color. It only took one touch of the purple blade and the barbed wire all but disintegrated.

Ella gave Angie a nod. "Good idea. I like how you think."

Joe had already reached the other side of the mud pit. Undaunted by the slime that covered him, he stayed focused on the genie at the end of the obstacle course. "I'm coming for you, you blue-skinned neuron! I've got no place else to go!"

"You have to admire his gusto once he fully commits to a task," Dante commented.

Intent upon the genie, Joe couldn't stop in time when a thick wall sprang up from the ground to suddenly block their path. He slammed into the mortar at full-speed, nearly knocking himself out cold and gaining a bloody nose for his efforts.

Ropes then unfurled from the top of the brick wall. But, when Joe reached for one, the cord moved on its own and wrapped around his wrist and neck.

Ella and Angie slogged out of the mud, already miserable at the feeling of the ooze filling their shoes and the sight of their now-ruined clothing, just in time to see Joe being tortured by the lengths of ropes dangling from the wall. Another strand reached over Dante's shoulder and snared his wrist.

Upon contact with his skin, the contagion was spread into the living rope's fibers. It shriveled and dissolved into nothingness almost immediately. Dante tried to grab at the remaining ropes, but they were carefully snaking out of his reach.

Two more lines tried to grab Angie. "You've got to be joking!" she yelled as she ran from the pursuing cords. She ran back towards the moat of lava.

The ropes formed lassos and pursued Ella. She fended them off with the drumsticks. "Okay, I get the irony!"

Angie returned, using the Fist of Schoolage to clutch a hot chunk of volcanic rock. She went to the choking Joe first, grabbing the cord that coiled around his neck. "Excuse me, Rambo," she said as she set the smoldering stone against the rope, igniting it. It snapped, dropping Joe to the ground. He tore the cord away from his throat, gasping for air.

She made quick work of setting fire to the remaining cords…quick because the stone was heating up her metal glove almost as fast as it was burning the attacking ropes. The cords shrieked like living things as the flames began to devour them. When the last strand began to burn, she dropped the lava rock and shed the glove, cursing, "Holy frick, that's hot!"

"Did that rope actually say 'Help me'?" Dante asked.

Ella stared at the wall. "How are we getting over that without ropes?"

Dante waved them away from the bricks. "Allow me." Everyone backed up to the edge of the mud pit. He drew the last snap cap from his pocket. Blinking his vision into focus, he pitched it at the stone. It obliterated the wall.

He admired his own handiwork. "I like this round. Explosions, fire, and mayhem. It's just like Thanksgiving at Grandma's."

Joe wasted no more time resuming his dash for the Grim Djinn. On the other side of the wall was a pit of quicksand. The looping monkey bars arched over the trap. Joe crossed them with no effort at all.

Dante hesitated at the edge of the bars. Angie and Ella were halfway across the twisting loops, fighting vertigo as they negotiated the twists, before they realized he wasn't following. Angie looked over her shoulder. "What are you doing?" she asked him.

He showed her his arm. The purple was halfway up to his shoulder now and he was paler than usual.

"Remember the barbed wire and the ropes?" he reminded her. He was pretty sure that the minute he touched the monkey bars, he would spread the poison into the metal bars...and possibly to his friends. He couldn't take the chance.

Angie started to turn around, but he shouted. "No! Keep going!"

On the other side, the ground sloped downward until it gave way to a pond of acid. On the bridge over the acid pool, the Grim Djinn waited. He grasped a ten foot pugil stick in his hand.

He greeted the burly human with a sneer. "Now, I will repay your insolence by making you a slave of Maldark. Perhaps this time I'll graft you with a labradoodle."

Joe cocked his head at the blue-skinned monster. "I got news for you-giving nerds like you a beat down is what I do every day. And I'm good at what I do."

The Grim Djinn aimed one end of his pugil stick at the boy. It unleashed a blast so powerful that it sent all four teens flying. Joe caught hold of the bridge, flying like a flag in the wind until the wave passed. Angie and Ella held on to the monkey bars for dear life. Already light-headed, Dante fell and rolled straight down into the quicksand pit.

Frowning, Angie used the glove to rip loose a curved piece of the monkey bars. She handed it to Ella. "Give this to Rambo." While Ella rushed after Joe, Angie backtracked along the monkey bars towards Dante.

Joe climbed back to his feet. As he began to lumber towards the Grim Djinn, he felt something cold and heavy pressed into his hand. He turned to find Ella handing him the length of pole.

He glanced over the weapon. It was ragged and curved at the end, but it would do some damage. "Oh yeah, that'll work!"

The Grim Djinn and Joe charged at each other, meeting halfway across the bridge. They began trading blows, the crack of metal against metal echoing across the arena.

Angie's mind was formulating a plan as she leaped from the monkey bars to the ground. She tore another piece of metal from the bars, which bowed dangerously at the loss of another length. She didn't care, figuring that if Joe and Ella didn't stop the Grim Djinn, it pretty much wouldn't matter whether she was stuck on this side of the pit or the other side.

She ran for the quicksand, skidding to a stop not far from where her friend was sinking into the dirt. Angie held out one end of the metal bar to him. "Dante!"

He grabbed the pole, hoping like hell that the toxin didn't spread faster than she could free him from the pit. Angie sat on the bank and pulled with all her strength. He was heavier than she would have thought, considering how thin he was. "Ohmygod, you've got to stop supersizing your Nacho Grande meals!" she grunted.

The purple spread along the metal rapidly, inching towards Angie's hands. She saw this, but refused to let go. The pole was dissolving practically beneath Dante's hands. He strained to reach for the solid ground. As his fingers touched the shore, he dug them in and added his strength to Angie's. He pulled himself out of the pit, and Angie dropped the pole just seconds before the toxin would have spread to her own skin.

Joe beat back the Grim Drill Sergeant, forcing him further across the bridge. The stench of the acid pond beneath the bridge burned his nose and made his eyes water. Focused on the duel, the teenager barely noticed. When the monster stumbled, Joe cracked him in the knee with the pole. The genie fell.

"Pretty sorry stuff." Joe stepped back, leaving the genie space to stand up again. He gave the Grim Djinn a _Matrix_-style wave. "You can do better than that, Marine!"

Bellowing his humiliation, the Grim Drill Sergeant swung the pugil stick and slammed it against the stones of the bridge. Cracks split the mortar in the space between the dueling opponents, snaking beneath the boy's feet. The bridge beneath his feet threatened to crumble.

Joe used his pole to vault over the weakened section of stone. He put all his momentum into plowing feet-first into the genie's chest. The genie turned to smoke at the last second; Joe sailed through him to slam against the stones of the bridge. Undaunted, as the genie solidified once more, Joe attacked from behind, using his bar to knock the Grim Drill Sergeant's feet out from under him. The genie stumbled.

The teenager took advantage of the genie's moment of weakness to deliver another blow, knocking the pugil stick from the genie's hand. Joe snatched up the weapon, smiling at the feel of the more substantial weapon in his hand. Still another strike from the boy and the Grim Drill Sergeant was pitched over the side of the bridge, barely turning to smoke in time to keep from plunging into the acid pond. He hovered, half-solid, half-smoke, beside the bridge, just out of Joe's reach.

"What do you intend to do now, boy?" the genie baited.

"This," Joe answered, swinging the pugil stick straight into the stone railing of the bridge. The stick tore a large chunk of mortar free and propelled the rock straight into the genie's face before the monster knew what was happening. He fell, screaming, straight into the acid pond.

Instantly, the obstacle course vanished, leaving the teenagers once more in the center of the Grimferno arena.

Joe held his arms above his head in a motion of victory. He hurried back to Ella, Angie, and Dante, grinning ear-to-ear. "Make that Never Fail _4_, Jolly Blue Giant 1-with an asterisk. We are good! When we get home, we should form the new Power Rangers."

Ella and Angie high-fived each other in celebration. Angie repeated the gesture with Joe. To his surprise, Ella flung her arms around his neck and squeezed with all her strength. "Sugar, I think you just made up for everything!" she complimented, impressed.

Joe's ears turned bright red.

Dante settled for nodding in response. He tried to stand, but his wobbly legs would not cooperate. While the others were distracted, he rolled down his sock just far enough to see the first lines of purple stretching from his toes to his ankle.

He checked his watch. Time must have been distorted within the Grimferno. It felt like hours since the Cocktrice had poisoned him, but, according to his watch, only thirteen minutes had passed. He had roughly seven minutes left and there were no new messages from Wyatt or Lyle.

_Come on, guys, where are you?_


	3. Chapter 3

_AN: Again, I don't own "Level Up" or its characters, I'm just taking them for a spin around the block. Hope you all are having fun, that's what it's all about._

**9**

Wyatt and Lyle were up to their avatars' virtual eyeballs with never-ending waves of every creature that inhabited Bolbard's Garden. Zombie Gnomes as large as the Hulk pounded at the avatars. Wizza distracted them by conjuring fireflies, which transfixed the massive, but simple-minded, monsters. Next came waves of Stinging Snails and Snapdragons (the latter being flowers that were actually a hybrid of flora and iguanas that favored biting off avatars' fingers and toes). After they'd fended off the gnomes, snails, and snapdragons, flocks of Skelhawks (hawks turned to living skeletons) tried to peck out Wizza and Black Death's eyes.

"We're never going to get through them in time. We need to get into that castle now!" Wyatt pounded the keyboard in frustration.

Lyle shook his head. "Can't help you there. The Alchemist has a spell-repellent shield. Last time I tried to teleport through it with a spell, I ended up frozen in the castle walls."

Wyatt let the virtual monsters finish off Black Death. Lyle let out a cry of protest as Wizza was suddenly facing swarms of creatures alone. Wyatt logged out of the game and called up the computer's portal program. "That was a game spell…we haven't tried a wormhole."

"You want to go into that garden? I think Dante's insanity is rubbing off on you."

"Not the garden. I'm going directly into the castle." The computer locked onto the position of Wizza inside the lines of coding that was the game. Lyle was staring at Wyatt like he was nuts. The computer genius pointed out, "We have like ten minutes, have you got a better idea?"

Lyle pulled off his headphones, abandoning the game. "I'm not arguing with the wormhole idea. But, you aren't going. I am."

"But—"

Lyle retrieved his weapon, a perfect duplicate of Wizza's Thunder Pole. "If you open a wormhole and Maldark messes with it, I don't know how to reopen it. I'm not Daventry Hills High School's favorite computer buddy. Besides, I'm not going to be the only one of us who hasn't got to go toe-to-toe inside the game." Lyle was right. He knew it. It just took Wyatt a few extra seconds to come around to the same conclusion.

Finally, the computer geek nodded. He picked up his Blast-A-Ton 2.0 and set it on the desk, within easy reach if something came out of the portal once he opened it. "Dante has twelve minutes."

The wizard nodded. "I only need three. Just don't get me stuck inside the wall."

Dante was not entirely surprised to discover that his legs would no longer support his weight. When the moment of jubilation for having survived another level passed, Angie took one look at her friend, and from the frustration darkening his face and the fact that he was still sitting, deduced the situation. She did not call it to Joe or Ella's attention. Without a word, she slipped back to her friend and kneeled beside him as close as she dared.

To her disappointment, there were no messages from Wyatt when Angie sneaked a look at her phone. She keyed another text message and hoped, somehow, it was getting through to their friends in the real world. _What's going on out there, guys? It's getting tight in here_.

Joe and Ella stood before the portal that the Grim Djinn had reopened. The genie hovered in the distance, watchful that Dante did not so much as think of breaking his oath to remain in the Grimferno. They knew better than to suggest Angie go. So, when the two remaining teenagers stepped towards the wormhole, Joe gestured for Ella to go.

She looked back at Dante, trying to ignore the now-obvious streaks of purple that marred his arms. To escape and allow him to stay riled her, flew in the face of everything she believed. "I'm not happy about this, you know," she said sadly.

"If I go, the whole game's forfeit and none of us get out. You know that. You go or no one does," Dante urged her.

She did not want that. She did not want to add another round of this surreal combat for her new friends. The only thing she could do for them now was leave, so she would go. That didn't mean she had to like it.

"You need to go before Big Boy Blue closes that portal," Joe said.

"I'll be waiting for you all, so you best be quick finishing this." She lowered her voice so only Joe could hear her next words. "Take care of the little fella."

She patted his shoulder for luck. Joe had the impulse to kiss the frustrating girl. Figuring her time on the farm had probably taught her all kinds of unpleasant ways to punish such boldness, he settled for kissing her hand. He was elated that, instead of maiming him, she offered him a smile before she vanished into the portal.

Angie turned back to Dante. Despite the fact that his eyelids were drooping like he was having trouble staying awake, he was watching…watching and frowning in Joe and Ella's direction. "What?"

He tried to cover whatever was bothering him. "What what?"

"What's with the look? You had the same look when Julio and Shayne left," she asked.

"It's not important."

Angie wasn't letting him off the hook this time. "For crying out loud, if there's something I should know, tell me." He opened his mouth and she guessed what was coming. "Yes, I know, weird time for the big talks. Just tell me."

"You remember those terms I negotiated with the genie?"

She rolled her eyes. "Uh, yeah, it's kind of come up once or one hundred times today. So?"

"We agreed that anyone set free would be returned exactly as they were before the Grim Djinn grabbed us," Dante explained. "I asked for that so that they'd forget Maldark and the game when they got back to the real world. It was the only way to keep our secret."

_All that talk about precise language and letting him set the terms…Dante really did have a plan. A pretty good plan, too. _ She was actually impressed. _So, Julio wasn't going to remember that he and Dante were on speaking terms, and Shayne would go back to avoiding him like the plague in art class, and Ella wouldn't remember that Joe had come through for them? _ _That was the price to keep them safe from joining the list of Maldark's real world enemies._

_It meant that Dante and Angie would forget everything that they'd gone through in the arena as well…if they ever got out of there._

Angie pulled out her cell phone again, opened her e-mail folder, and quickly started typing.

"What are you doing?" Dante asked.

"If we're going to forget everything, I'm sending a message to Future Me," she answered. "Got anything you don't want Future Dante to forget? Like maybe that your ex-best friend isn't a total wad?"

_That was a good idea_, he thought. "I-"

The Grim Djinn again interrupted. "You are brave warriors, but I watched you long before I brought you into the Grimferno, Sir Dante. I know your secret fears."

Angie was getting tired of that line. She stood and glared up at him. "So you keep saying. I've met hamsters scarier than you."

"True story," Dante told Joe.

Joe waved for Angie to shut up. "Again, let's not taunt the psychotic genie..."

"Your time is limited before the Cockatrice poison takes you and I will have fulfilled my vow to Lord Maldark. You cannot hope to defeat me now, Sir Dante. There is no reason why your brave companions should perish. They are worthy players. If the two of you will swear an oath to serve Lord Maldark," the genie glanced at Angie and Joe, "I will end the game now."

They only blinked at him in response.

"So be it," he said.

The smoke swirled, changing the Grim Djinn again. When he emerged from the smoke, Angie thought for a moment he'd taken the form of _Edward Scissorhands…_if Edward was blue-skinned, had fangs, was seven feet tall, and cackled like he was bat crap crazy. Then she saw the white smock and it clicked into place that the genie had taken the form of a Grim…

"Barber? Who in their right mind is scared of a…." She turned to raise her eyebrow at her friend. "A barber? Seriously, Dante?"

"They do shaves by sticking straight razors right next to your jugular. One unanticipated sneeze and…" Dante drew his finger across his throat to demonstrate. "…the horror."

"You just had a haircut!" After the Acid-Spitting Dragon had melted most of it off the top of his head, Angie had been called upon to help him find a toupee to hide the accident from Barbara. It had taken weeks for his hair to grow back to something close to normal, after which he'd been forced to head back to the barber college to clean up the uneven lengths. No amount of nagging from Wyatt, Lyle, or Angie would convince him to set foot in a real barber shop, but Angie had chalked it off to Dante's constant state of impoverishment, not a phobia.

"Against my will," he reminded her.

The Grim Shaver waved his hand and the ceiling of the arena became translucent glass, allowing digitally-generated sunlight to shine in. It reflected off the multiple scissor blades he carried in each hand. The glint of the light blinded the teenagers, and they squinted to see their opponent through the glare.

The ground cracked, fissures snaking outward and separating the teenagers. The ground beneath Angie's feet became a mesa, this time lifting her and the Grim Djinn high above the arena floor before the boys could react.

"Angie!" Dante stumbled unsteadily to his feet, but the earth pitched again and threw him back to the ground.

Five more small mesas formed; one lifted Joe and Dante into the air. The mesas began rising and sinking in unpredictable patterns, which did nothing to help Dante's already unsettled stomach. He had to shut his eyes against the sight of the arena spinning to stave off vertigo.

A pond of foul-smelling water formed around the mesas. Blossoms floated on the water, spewing toxic perfume that made her want to gag. It wasn't quite as pungent as the smell from Dante's locker, but it was a close second. Grey, wilted plants surrounded the pond. Hybrid leech-piranha swam through the green water. One leaped out of the water and snapped at Joe. He batted it away with the Fist of Schoolage.

_It's like an Anti-Zen garden_, Angie thought.

Joe was calculating the distance between the mesas, trying to time a leap onto the stone where the Grim Shaver circled Angie. She called him back: "No! Edward Scissorhands here is mine."

"You can't…" Joe argued.

Dante's eyes opened a slit. "Oh, she can. She knows Krav Maga," he said proudly.

"Why the hell didn't _you_ fight the Drill Sergeant, then?" Joe asked her.

"You were having too much fun." She raised the drumsticks, as ready for the fight as she would be. She threw the Fist of Schoolage to Joe.

The Grim Shaver lunged at her, tilting his blades again so that the reflection blinded her. Angie feinted aside. The genie's momentum nearly made him fall off the mesa. She swung her leg and swept the back of his knees, satisfied to hear them crack and the monster's yelp of pain. When he fell, she leaped to another bobbing mesa as it rose to meet her.

He followed. A leech-piranha jumped at him and he sliced it neatly in half, mid-air.

The genie landed, blades flashing so quickly that Angie could only blindly defend herself. She couldn't mount an attack when she couldn't look at him without light burning her eyes. The drumsticks made quite a concussion when they impacted his blades. Angie felt her bones vibrate each time their weapons connected. She was glad that the drumsticks were now an alloy that the Grim Shaver's blades could not cut.

"You fight well, Lady Methane…your comrade chooses his allies well," the genie complimented.

"If you want to scare me, it's going to take more than a few scissors and a lot of hot air," she answered.

"I would have discarded you right away if you weren't so useful," the Grim Shaver taunted. "Why do you assume it's _you_ I'm trying to break?"

She knew what he meant. Her eyes narrowed in warning. "Don't think Dante won't kick your ass, barber phobia or not."

"Indeed. I see that he will never surrender even if I take his life. Fortunately, I think there's something else I can take that _will_ destroy him." The Grim Shaver attacked with a flurry of movements, coming so close to striking her that she could feel the rush of air as the blades barely missed her skin. Another attack and one blade caught her arm. In that instant, Angie was cornered against the edge of the mesa, with the genie's blades forming a V around her neck.

Dante was not aware that his eyes had drifted shut until the boom of the two weapons jerked him back to full consciousness. "You still with us?" Joe asked.

"Wha-where's Grim Djinn?" He blinked the spots out of his eyes, trying to spot Angie and the Grim Shaver. Dante saw them on one of the mesas, saw the Grim Shaver's trick. The genie swung his knives and one sliced across Angie's arm. Before she recovered, he'd backed her up to the edge of the undulating mesas, with his blades to her throat.

"No one…touches….Angie…" Furious, Dante instinctively tried to move to help, but his legs were still uncooperative. He could barely crawl to the edge of the mesa.

Joe stepped in front of him. "You can't fight. You can't even stand up."

Dante was looking around for something. "Where's…backpack?" he grunted.

Since the other boy was going to hurt himself trying to crawl around, Joe quickly searched for the bag. He spied it on the floor of the arena. It took a minute for the mesa to sink low enough that Joe could jump off and run to retrieve the pack, another minute before the mesa again sank so that he could jump back on. He brought the bag to Dante.

"You don't…_ever…_give up." Dante tore through the bag until he came up with Fred's water balloons and Shayne's tubes of paint.

Oblivious to the boys, the Grim Shaver continued the barrage of strikes at Angie, driving her to the edge of the mesa. She saw blood oozing from the cut on her forearm, but the adrenaline rush of trying to survive the fight was keeping the pain from kicking in for the time being. She tucked and rolled to avoid being impaled or plummeting to her death, coming up behind the genie once again.

She was pretty sure this was going to end with her being skewered…

…until a balloon full of green paint hit the Grim Shaver right in his face, blinding him. Another balloon splashed paint over the blades, cutting the glare of the artificial sunlight. Angie heard Joe and Dante give victory shouts from their mesa.

She figured she had about ten seconds to take advantage of the situation. Angie raised the drumsticks and bashed the Grim Shaver on both sides of his neck with the sticks. The concussion nearly took off his head. He staggered, reeling. She followed that with a blow to his jaw, then a kick to his chest, and he went over the side. He dug his blades into the side of the mesa to keep from falling. He started pulling himself back up.

Angie was waiting. "Let me show you a trick I learned from a friend of mine," she said. With that, she slammed the drumsticks against the mesa, generating a rolling concussion as good as anything the Skull Cracker could have done.

The mesa crumbled.

Angie timed the rise and fall of the other mesas and jumped to safety. The Grim Shaver fell with the broken rocks down into the pond, where the leech-piranhas began to devour him until he quickly changed form. Smoke rose from the water and the genie's cry of fury echoed through the arena.

The game world was freaking awesome.

At least, that was Lyle's first impression when he stepped through the portal Wyatt created into the digital realm. It might look light cartoon animation, but everything from the ground beneath his feet to…well, to his virtual feet…felt very real and substantial. He would swear he could really smell the moldy stench of Bolbard's castle. He could hear the unseen rats as they scurried along stone floors. He could feel the cold air and his digital skin had goosebumps in reaction to the chill. When he stuck his hand near a torch to see if it generated heat, pain radiated through his fingertips to remind him it was unwise to stick them too close to fire…even if it was computer-generated.

That sobered him. If he could feel a sting from a torch, it had to be worse for Dante and Angie in the arena, feeling every bump and scrape and bruise…and Cockatrice poison. He didn't have time to marvel at Max's creation. He had a quest to finish.

Wyatt's targeting had been dead on; Lyle was standing right at the doorway to the castle's innermost chamber, the room where Bolbard and his potions would be waiting.

"You have a plan?"

Before they'd met I.R.L., Wyatt, Lyle, and Dante had only known each other as voices and avatars on a computer screen. Lyle had thought nothing about that. It was perfectly commonplace in the age of cell phones and Skype. But, right at that moment, standing inside the virtual world with no sign of a keyboard or headset, he found it somewhat disconcerting that Wyatt was currently nothing but a disembodied voice in his ear.

"Of course," he answered, his voice loud in the eerie stillness of the castle corridor. Lyle aimed his scepter at the mammoth wooden and metal door and commanded: "_Aperire_!"

The door slowly opened with the groan of rusty metal grinding against metal and the creak of wood. He held his weapon ready for whatever flew out of the doorway to meet him. Still, he couldn't help a moment's pause when he saw Bolbard-not quite live and in person, but close enough-for the first time.

The room was dark. Lyle could barely discern shapes and shadows. The only light came from his flickering torch. The chamber was filled with towering, glowing crystals, making the room resemble a giant geode. Bolbard's throne stood at the far end of the room, flanked by twin columns of crystal. Behind the throne was the cabinet that contained all of Bolbard's potions…including the Elixir of Nightfrost. A cauldron bubbled over cold fire at the center of the room. Bolbard himself stood near the pot.

The alchemist was ten feet tall and a skeleton just like the birds of his garden. He was blind; Lyle already knew that from the character's profile. He didn't even have sockets where eyes might have been once. In their place, he wore a robe covered with eyes from every sort of creature. Each eye controlled one of the Skelhawks that circled around the high ceiling of the room.

The swarm of skeleton birds screeched and dove at Lyle.

"_Fujita_!" he yelled. The scepter glowed and, with it, a massive windstorm kicked up within the chamber. The gale whipped the Skelhawk flock in all directions, carrying them away from Lyle. Some slammed into the wall and shattered into individual bones. Some were propelled down side tunnels and hallways and did not return.

Bolbard turned in Lyle's direction. "Wizza." He gave the impression that he would have smiled if he'd had lips. "Lord Maldark will grant me anything I ask if I hand you over to him."

His bony hand dipped into the cauldron, coming up with a ball of glowing green light.

"He's not particular how many pieces you're in, so I'll start by tearing the flesh from your bones and keep it for myself," the alchemist threatened.

"You borrowing my skin? Please, you cannot handle something this gorgeous," Lyle shot back.

Bolbard hurled the ball of light at the game wizard. "_Tergum lacer_!" What looked like a billion tiny fireflies swirled from the glowing orb. Lyle could see tiny stingers on each insect.

He was ready with a counter-spell: "_Repello hello_!" A shield appeared, catching the fireflies and bouncing them right back at the alchemist. Bolbard hissed and batted the bugs away.

Lyle had to fence in Bolbard. Normally, that required three players creating a force field around the alchemist. He did not have three players this time (and having three people hadn't done Never Fail a darn bit of good the last time they'd faced Bolbard). But, Lyle always learned from failed quests, and ever since the first time their avatars had faced off against the alchemist, Lyle had been toying with an idea for trapping Bolbard.

Now was his chance. Lyle just hoped it worked.

He aimed his Thunder Pole at the two crystal columns by Bolbard's throne. "_Caveam lucis_!"

A beam of light like a laser shot from the crystal on Lyle's scepter to one of the crystal column. From that column, it bounced to the second crystal column, which refracted it back to Lyle's scepter. A perfect triangle of energy formed, with Bolbard caged in at its center. The energy poured out light that was harsh in the darkness of the chamber. Lyle was not trying to blind an alchemist who already could not see…he wanted the glare to blind the myriad eyes on Bolbard's robes.

Sure enough, when the glow blinded the eyes of the robe, the remaining Skelhawks were left with nothing to guide them and began flying in aimless directions. Again, Bolbard hissed in rage.

Lyle shook his head at the alchemist. "I'll just be keeping my flesh, thank you very much, you creepy, creepy freak."

So far, so good…but Lyle realized slowly that he had another problem: If he moved his scepter, it would break the beam that was holding Bolbard at bay. But, he needed his weapon to open the cabinet with the potions.

He shoved the Thunder Pole into the ground, making sure it would stand on its own. This left him pretty much defenseless, which was not good in any way. "Black Death! Weapon me!"

Wyatt was quick to respond. The portal opened and Dante's Skull Cracker flew through the wormhole to land neatly at Lyle's feet. He picked up the weapon with a grin. "This one's for you, my friend."

Leaving the alchemist to seethe, Lyle circled behind the throne. One swing of the Skull Cracker all but obliterated the cabinet doors…but the shreds of wood and metal flew across the room and, in pure bad luck, struck his scepter. The staff was knocked out of alignment with the crystal columns and the cage of energy abruptly winked out.

Bolbard shrieked a cry of mindless humiliation. His disoriented Skelhawks regathered from all corners of the castle, massing for another attack on the game wizard.

Lyle grabbed the bottle of elixir, shoved it into his jacket pocket, and flat-out ran for it. He barely remembered to take the Skull Cracker and his Thunder Pole with him in his haste to escape the pursuing monsters.

As he tore through the hallways, Lyle yelled for Wyatt: "Wormhole, wormhole, _wormhole_!"

The rainbow-colored portal blinked open directly in front of him. Lyle jumped through, landing back at the clan's warehouse headquarters.

Two Skelhawks made it through before Wyatt closed the portal. The skeleton birds were unprepared and crashed into the assorted piles of junk that the boys had accumulated. The delay gave Wyatt just enough time to snatch up his Blast-A-Ton 2.0 and show one of the Skelhawks how the weapon had earned its name.

Lyle swung the Skull Cracker at the second Skelhawk, connecting with its bone beak. The bird let out a death squawk and shattered into bits. He grinned at the blue bat, rather enjoying simply bashing Leaks for a change. "You know, I see why Dante likes this," he said to Wyatt.

_Dante_! Wyatt forgot the birds and rushed back to his laptop. A look at the time reminded Wyatt that they had only about six minutes left. They had the elixir. Now, they just had to get Dante and Angie.

Angie's cell phone beeped.

She was too far away to hear it, busy waiting for the bobbing mesa to lower her back to the arena floor. Dante forced his drooping eyes to open and fumbled for the phone that she'd left behind. Belatedly, it sank into his groggy mind that he shouldn't have touched their only link to the real world when the device began to turn purple in his hands.

He read the message from Wyatt and smiled to himself. He'd never doubted Wyatt and Lyle would come through in the end.

Then he thumbed the 'delete' key. Angie would never know-she'd just assume the Grim Djinn interfered and the message hadn't come through.

Dante stared at the phone, thinking about Angie's suggestion about sending a message. Not to his future self. At the moment, he wasn't sure they would be a Future Dante. But there was one other message he'd debated sending all day long. If he didn't send it now…well, it was now or possibly never.

Squinting to make out the letters on the keypad, Dante started typing.

Angie finally made it off the mesa and ran back to Dante and Joe. "Can I hear a Huz-zah?" she basked in having kicked the genie's blue butt.

Joe tried to high-five her. She winced as the movement made the cut on her arm sting. She'd almost forgotten about it during the fight. Without asking permission, she tore off one of Joe's shirt sleeves and wrapped it around her bleeding arm. He gave her an offended look, but said nothing. She did know Krav Maga after all.

Dante managed a tired grin and complimented. "Epic…win…"

"I know…" Angie was grinning…until she caught sight of her cell phone, which was now discolored from the poison. "My phone!"

He shrugged weakly. "Sorry."

She took a deep breath and let it go. He wasn't thinking straight, she knew. He hadn't done it on purpose. "Any word from W-Black Death?"

"No," he said.

Angie's eyes widened. _What was taking so long? Wyatt and Lyle should have taken care of that alchemist by now. "_What do you mean 'no'?" She glanced at her watch. "Just-how much time is left? I'm sure they'll have it any second now-"

The Grim Djinn opened the portal, and his voice commanded once more: "Make your choice."

Angie was done waiting on Lyle and Wyatt. Maybe something had happened and their message just hadn't come through. Maybe Maldark or the Grim Djinn had caught on to the trick and blocked the connection. She knew in her soul they would not fail.

"Time for you to go, Dante," she ordered. "We'll take our chances with Blue Boy's temper tantrums…"

Joe nodded agreement.

Dante didn't so much as try to move and they couldn't very well lift him to force him to go. "You know I can't." He rallied his strength for the conniption fit Angie was about to unleash on him.

Angie grabbed her Fist of Schoolage, figuring it would protect her from the poison long enough for her to bodily shove him out the portal. Sacrificing the weapon was a small price to pay for her friend's life. "You _have_ to go back now—this is suicidal. Are you _trying_ to die in here?"

Suddenly looking quite lucid, Dante stared her right in the eyes and answered with total honesty: "Yes."

**10**

She stopped in her tracks. It was the last answer she'd expected. "What do you mean 'yes'?"

"Yes." Dante pushed himself backwards, trying to stay out of her reach (like he had a chance of escaping her in his current condition). "I mean, I don't _want_ to die in here. I want to get out of here and go home. The only way I can do that is to die. Here. Today."

To his surprise, she didn't scream or argue. She kneeled down beside him, prepared to hear him out. "I don't understand. Why?"

"Terms of Engagement….remember…we lost. I stay in the Grimferno and serve Maldark…"

Angie remembered now. Precise terms. Specific terms. She blinked, stunned. "Until the day you die. Holy crap, I think I get it." She leaned her head against her hands, trying to think of a better plan. "Did you _let_ that Cockatrice poison you just in case we lost a round?"

"No, but every plan relies on a certain amount of dumb luck."

"So, your escape plan is to let the poison kill you? Then what? That's not dumb luck, that's crazy! Dying is not escaping-"

His brown eyes flashed with a rare moment of anger. "I'm not crazy! I'm not suicidal! Can't you just trust that I know what I'm doing?"

"Trust you?" Angie automatically started to fire off an insult, but couldn't do it. Instead, she took her glove back from Joe and pulled it on. "Not with barded booty, not with the last slice of pizza…"

Without warning, she used the Fist of Schoolage to pick up Joe and shoved him out the portal before either boy could say a thing about it.

"…but definitely with my life," she finished.

"Ang…"

"No names in the game," she teased, plopping down beside him. "I'm sorry. I do trust you. I know you're not crazy, Dante. Well, you are, but a good kind of crazy. All that stuff that Julio said…I don't even know the guy he was talking about. Whoever that guy was, he's not the same one who keeps saving our butts over and over when Maldark's Leaks come hunting for us. You were the first one who wanted me in our clan. You made Wyatt let me into the clan. You gave me my Fist of Schoolage. You helped me win the election for class president. You even like my Celtic dancing."

He nodded. "I really do."

"You believe in me. We trust you…I trust you. So, why won't you trust me? I'm like one of your best friends, aren't I?" _Wasn't she? When Wyatt gave Dante sunburn on half his face with the Blast-A-Ton 2.0, didn't she paint the other half of his face red? Didn't she bring the pitcher full of ice cubes when he'd mistakenly thought lighting Skull Cracker on fire was a smart idea? Didn't she crawl around the high school's air ducts with him based on his hunch about hamster poop leading them to a Leak? Hadn't she been backing him up against these grim monsters all freaking day? _ "Why didn't you tell me what you were planning? Why didn't you tell me about Julio or Durasmell? I don't even know what you did to get dragged home by the police! I bet Black Death and Wizza know…"

"Which time?" he deadpanned.

"What? How many times were there?"

The anger was replaced by a wary, almost haunted, look Angie hadn't seen in Dante's eyes in a long time, back when their 'clan' first came together. She thought about the person Dante had been back then-it seemed a long time ago, but it had only been a few short months: The school's biggest troublemaker, the one who pulled some kind of reckless stunt like riding t.v. carts down the school steps and almost breaking his neck on a daily basis, the 'criminal' students whispered rumors about in the hallways, the one who didn't bother trying to fit in and would never in a million years have been caught hanging around with Wyatt or Angie or Lyle…

…_because why bother getting close to anyone when they gave up on you like his best friend Julio did? When they spend years calling you a screw-up before they walked out completely like Dante's father? When they threaten to pack you off to boarding school at any moment like his well-meaning but completely harried mom? _

Angie had almost forgotten that serious, guarded, self-proclaimed screw-up she'd met back then. He was so far removed from the man Dante was now that they were almost like two different people. Wyatt, Lyle, and Angie had chipped away at the wall Dante put between himself and the world until the real Dante emerged bit-by-bit-quirks, eccentricities, and all.

_Or had until today, when running into Julio and phone calls from father had brought all that crap bubbling back to the surface and reopened wounds that had barely started to heal._ Angie suddenly had the answer to her own question, and she wasn't sure she'd be handling it any better if she were in his fungus-crusted shoes.

Eventually, he muttered something that sounded like (but couldn't possibly have been). "I whizzed on a police dog."

She wrinkled her nose. "What?"

"Lights and sirens and police dropping me on Barbara's porch. Strike one. I told you that you wouldn't want to know," he confessed. She already knew his second strike and ride home with the police owed to accidentally smashing the vice-principal's car while barding a Leak.

She might have guessed it would be something completely gross. What else would it have been? It _was _Dante, after all. "_That's_ your deep, dark criminal past?"

"And the reason I have a scar on-"

"Don't you dare finish that sentence."

As long as they were clearing the air, Dante had questions of his own. He blinked against another need to close his eyes. He wasn't sure he'd be able to open them again, and this was important. "Your turn: Why have you been on my ass all day? About my dad, about Julio, about Shayne…"

"You're my friend. I was just worried about-"

"That's not it," he knew.

Angie clammed up for a minute, blushing a bit. She started nervously twisting a strand of her dark hair, avoiding meeting his gaze. "Let me ask you: You know Shayne and Maggie and those girls you keep chasing until they transfer to other schools or take out restraining orders?"

Dante shrugged, not really seeing what that had to do with anything.

"They're all brainiac overachievers, clean cut, smart…" She glanced at him out the corner of her eye. He still looked clueless. "Do they ever remind you of anyone?"

"Like who-" He started, before his brain kicked in and prevented him from finishing a question that would have gotten him in serious trouble with her. "-oh."

"So, why do you go all drooly over them and look at me like I'm your Cousin Brunhilda?"

He disagreed. "You look nothing like my cousin Brunhilda…"

Angie made a noise of exasperation. "Just answer the question before Blue Boy comes back."

"All right, let _me_ ask _you_: Philbert and I are basically the same person…so why do you crush on him or cramps like Leroy and treat me like Cousin Itt?"

"Says the boy with the dead skin collection..."

"Just answer the question."

She would have, if she'd had an explanation. _It was not even remotely possible that she'd been jealous. It was just that weird bond that she and Dante had. That weird bond that made her want to throttle him one minute and want to kick Wyatt's butt for carelessly burning him with that gun the next minute. The weird bond that made him chase her off as an NPR one minute and then turn around and bring her into the clan the next. Fierce protectiveness alternating with complete revulsion…there was no word for…whatever the heck they were. Maybe they were entitled to a little jealousy now and then._

"You're…Dante," was the only answer she had.

"And you're…Angie." He had to fight the urge to bump shoulders with her. "Feel better now?"

And there it was, simple as that. Maybe they didn't have to understand the 'why'. "Strangely enough, yes," she said.

"Good. I'm glad we had this talk. Can we get back to the giant monster that's trying to kill us now?" He'd somehow gone from sitting down to almost being flat on his back without realizing it. Dante tried pushing himself, but only got as far as weakly propping himself up on his elbows. _This had been the longest damn twenty minutes of his life._

Angie reached for the drumsticks. "I hate this plan, just so we're clear."

He couldn't argue with that sentiment. "Me, too."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Make sure the Grim Djinn sticks to the terms of battle."

The Grim Djinn gazed down at the last two combatants. Maldark was wise to fear these two mortals and their clan in the realm beyond this world. They'd faced everything the Grimferno could throw at them and still they had not broken. The boy would fight to his last breath. His kinswoman would defy the Grim Djinn until the end.

And this was the end.

"This is the final battle," the Grim Djinn told them.

The girl jumped to her feet, weapons at the ready. "Bring it."

"Not you, woman."

The challenge was answered not by the genie, but by the overlord who had watched most of the battles silently from the corners of the arena…so silently that they'd nearly forgotten Maldark's presence.

This was the last battle. Maldark had awaited the death of his enemy with growing unrest, watching the genie suffer defeat again and again. The boy should have been dead in the very first battle. True, Maldark was immensely enjoying watching him slowly dying of the poison. He'd hoped the Grim Djinn would make Sir Bickle-but not Sir Bickle-suffer a lingering, painful death. But it was time for him to be a good lad and get on with dying. Maldark was weary of the game.

The Conqueror Of All Realms raised his staff and conjured the most elegant and simple of traps. A cage of smooth, transparent steel encircled the boy and the genie.

The Grim Djinn whirled to face his master. "You interfere?" His eyes grew red with rage. "You break our agreement?"

"You are a singularly useless creature. Can you not kill one insignificant boy?" Maldark seethed. "I'll show you how it's done."

Dante wished Maldark would move a little closer so he could hock a nice wad of poisonous spit right in his bloated face, wished he had the strength left to at least die standing on his feet. "Take your best shot," he goaded the game lord.

"They are already yours, Lord Maldark," the Grim Djinn stepped between the boy and Maldark. "The battle is lost. They are defeated. You have but to wait and this one will be dead. When he's gone, his courageous kinswoman can take his place as your slave."

Dante's fingers curled into a fist.

The genie glanced back at him. "You knew you could not save them all, the ones in the great yellow machine. You knew defeat was inevitable. That's why you were so desperate to send her home." The Grim Djinn nodded to the dark-haired girl, who was at the moment circling the cage in search of a way inside. "Like a true knight, you have honored your word to the last and I respect honor. There is no need for you to die today. It is within my power to heal you. Swear loyalty to Lord Maldark of your own free will, and you and your kinswoman shall both live."

The teenager didn't dignify that with an answer. He simply glared through drooping eyelids, resisting the darkness that was closing in at the edge of his vision.

The Grim Djinn persisted. "You hesitate? Out of loyalty to your clan? I told you, I've watched you in your realm and I've seen inside your memory, Dante Onterro. Are you loyal to the one who would send you away? To the one who has already forsaken you? You have never failed your duty to your clan. You owe them nothing. You need not die for them. Come with us…not a slave, be an ally, a true warrior of unlimited power among a clan that will never forsake you. Swear allegiance willingly to the Lord Maldark and live."

Maldark screamed, "I have no interest in more slaves! He and his kinswoman will die for the trouble they've caused me. Stand aside or be destroyed with them-!"

His cry of fury turned into a scream of pain as he felt something shoved through his chest. Maldark looked down to see a purple blade protruding from his torso. Stunned with disbelief, he felt at his back and found the hilt of the blade that had penetrated his body and the inhuman hand that still gripped the weapon. Blood rose in his throat and dribbled down the corner of his mouth.

Slowly, he pulled himself off the blade and—swaying as he did so—turned to face his attacker.

Angie stood on the opposite side of the wall. She wore a large metal glove on her fist and had used it to punch a hole through the steel divider. In the glove, she clutched the hilt of the bloodied purple blade. "Who's 'insignificant' now, you giant cramp?" she growled.

Maldark clutched at the hole in his chest. Threads of purple were rapidly spreading from the wound to the rest of his body. He glanced from the girl, who hurriedly pitched away the blade and the glove as the contamination spread to her Fist of Schoolage, to the boy, who was smirking at the game lord.

The Grim Djinn offered, "It is within my power to save you as well, Lord Maldark. Release me from my vow to you, and I will heal you of the poison."

Maldark coughed up another bubble of purple blood. His voice was no more than a wheeze, his words soft but brimming with his contempt. "I have…no need of you…to save me…and I release you from nothing…finish the battle…kill the boy."

With that, he vanished.

The boy in question mumbled something so quietly that the genie could not make out his words. The Grim Djinn waved his hand and Dante felt himself lifted by unseen hands. Red eyes glared, eye to eye with brown eyes. "What did you say?" the genie hissed.

"I said I can't believe you locked yourself inside a steel box with a poisoned player," Dante repeated.

Then, with his last reserve of strength, he sank his teeth into the Grim Djinn's arm.

The genie howled as tendrils of purple snaked up his arm. The invisible strings holding up Dante let him go and he dropped hard to the floor. Impacting with the floor head-first, he lost the battle to hold off the darkness. He didn't try to fight as unconsciousness finally claimed him.

"Dante!" Angie saw the genie stagger as the poison rapidly took hold. She didn't care. All that mattered was that her friend had fallen and wasn't moving. She couldn't tell if he was even breathing.

She pushed her way through the hole that the Fist of Schoolage had punched into the wall, running to Dante.

"He bit me!" the Grim Djinn gasped.

_What, was he expecting sympathy from her? _"Yeah, he does things like that." Angie watched, but did not see his chest move. He wasn't breathing. The Seeing Eye disappeared from his forehead, no longer bound to a living avatar.

"Dante? No, no you don't..." Tears blurred her vision. She wiped them away with frustration.

_This was the plan. He had to die…and Angie had to remind the Grim Djinn of their agreement._

The Grim Djinn slumped away from the humans, resigned. He was defeated. Worse than defeated, for he was forbidden to use his powers for his own gain…including saving his own life…unless his master gave him leave to do so. Maldark would do no such thing when the genie had failed to kill Sir Dante…

…but he had not failed, the Grim Djinn realized. The boy was dead.

"To the last, I keep my word and my honor." No longer bound to be their foe, the genie's voice was almost respectful. He snapped his fingers and the steel cage was gone. "The boy promised to stay, but you defeated me. You may go, Lady Met-."

"Yeah, yeah, terms of battle have to be obeyed. You promised to kill Dante, and Dante promised to stay here until he died. You've both kept your word! Let us go!" Angie yelled at the Grim Djinn.

The Grim Djinn realized she had spoken truthfully. This was an unanticipated turn of events. He was no longer obliged to Maldark, and neither was the boy.

Not that freedom would save either of their lives.

_He wasn't going to help._ Angie saw it in the genie's hesitation.

She wasn't accepting this…it would not end this way. She wouldn't let it end this way.

Angie paused for only one second to acknowledge the insanity of what she was about to do. Then she leaned down and started blowing air into Dante's lungs.

Her lips burned as the first trace of poison absorbed into her body.

She didn't care.

She laid her fists over his heart, just as she'd practiced a hundred times for her Red Cross CPR certification, and forced his blood to resume circulation. Purple contagion spread to her hands.

Angie ignored it.

Maldark reappeared in his place in the arena's bleachers, still clutching at the wound in his chest. He thundered at the balking Grim Djinn. "You defy your master! I commanded you to destroy him!"

Serenely, watching the poison spreading across his own skin, the genie turned to face the overlord. "Indeed, and the boy is dead. As I have fulfilled my oath to you, Lord Maldark, I am no longer bound to serve you. Know this: Never again will I ally myself with you, Lord of Deception"

The genie waved his hand and a ball of energy shot from his hand to the overlord. Maldark swiftly withdrew from the Grimferno rather than face the genie as his enemy.

The Grim Djinn gazed back at the girl, who kept up her determined efforts to restore her friend to life. "Lady Methane? The battle is over. You are free to go."

The genie added: "Your kinsman negotiated wisely when he negotiated the terms of our battle. By our pact, any whom I release must be returned exactly as they were when I took them from your world."

Angie barely spared him a sidelong glance. She did not stop her CPR, did not pause to wonder if attempting resuscitation on her friend while he was a digital avatar was futile. It was all she could think to do.

She was still trying to breathe air into Dante's lungs when a brilliant light of myriad colors suddenly filled her senses and whited out the world.


	4. Chapter 4

_AN: Okay, everyone, your ride is slowly coming to an end. Please remain seated. I hope you enjoyed this. Thanks for sticking with me to the end. _

_And disclaimer, I still don't own "Level Up" or anything except my own characters. *sigh*_

**Epilogue**

They had been on the school bus. Angie remembered that much…then a big blank spot where her memory of returning to school after the field trip should have been. The next thing she knew, the bright light was gone and she was back in Never Fail's warehouse H.Q.

Okay, fine. Weirdness happened every day when you lived in a town where video game avatars leaked into the real world. Angie could deal with weirdness.

But someone had better have a damn good explanation for how and why she ended up kneeling on the floor, hovering over Dante with her mouth on his.

Equally baffled, he mumbled, voice muffled by her lips: "Angie? What are you doing?"

She jumped back at least a foot. "Ohmy god! What the hell-? You-?" Her mind was going too fast to form coherent words. She glanced from the boy lying on the cement floor to Wyatt and Lyle, who were standing nearby. The latter had his cellphone and snapped a photo of the whole thing with a grin that was pure evil. She stammered at them, trying to ask for an explanation. All she could squeak out was, "_What the hell_?"

Wyatt was so grateful just to see them both that he couldn't help smiling. He tried to get her to settle down so he could explain, since it was obvious she didn't remember anything about the Grimferno. "Angie, it's not what you think-"

Lyle cut him off, "No, no…let's see what she does..."

Angie was completely oblivious to everything else-to the fact that their headquarters were more trashed than usual, to the piles of Skelhawk bones that littered the warehouse and the furniture overturned and broken during the fight, and to the medieval-looking bottle of elixir that Wyatt held in one hand. "That did not happen! I don't know what's going on here, what sick Leak trick this is, but that did not happen…" She dashed to their sink, turned the water on, and stuck her mouth under the stream.

"When are we going to tell her she wasn't really kissing Dante?" Wyatt asked Lyle.

Lyle shrugged. "As soon as it stops being fun watching her freak out. Two, three days…a week, tops."

Not that they blamed her. They'd been more than a little freaked out, too, when the images fed to Wyatt's computer by the Seeing Eye abruptly stopped…mostly because the Seeing Eye would have only stopped if Dante…well, stopped. For two or three minutes that felt like two or three years, Wyatt and Lyle had stared at the darkened computer screen in pure, gut-wrenching dread.

Wyatt had been in the process of re-opening their wormhole into the Grimferno-the genie's warning be damned-when the Grim Djinn's portal had opened and dumped Angie and the unconscious Dante into the warehouse.

Dante sat up, trying to piece together the gaps in his memory. He felt awful. His stomach was unsettled like he'd just eaten another car seat and every bone and muscle in his body ached. He surveyed the wreckage of their headquarters. Then he looked at Wyatt and Lyle. The computer geek had a goofy grin on his face. Lyle merely nodded in welcome. His face and arms were covered by dozens of tiny bird bites.

"Guys? Did I miss a fight?" Dante asked.

The next thing he knew, Wyatt was squeezing the stuffing out of him. "Dante! Are you all right?"

"Dude, we talked about this. You're only allowed two hugs per year. And I'm counting you tackling me in that football game as one."

Wyatt let go. "Sorry. I'm just glad you're alive…and that you aren't purple anymore."

Dante had no idea what that was supposed to mean. "I was purple? And I missed it?" he asked in disappointment.

Lyle saw that Wyatt was right-there were no more purple welts on Dante. Even Angie looked clear of the contagions (though it was hard to tell, since she was still bent on scrubbing her mouth with any sort of soap she could get her hands on at the moment). "No more poison. The Grim Djinn must have healed him."

"I missed a fight with a Grim Djinn _and_ being purple?" Dante was really unhappy now. His memory was a complete blank between being on the school bus and waking up in the warehouse. _Did he wipe out on the skateboard and give himself a concussion again…? Barbara would take his skateboard away if…_ "Wait…how'd we get here? Where's my stuff? Where's my skateboard?"

"I think you left it in the Grimferno," Wyatt answered.

"I missed being purple and fighting a Grim Djinn _and_ being in the Grimferno?" Sulking, he slumped onto their battered sofa.

"You don't remember?" Lyle asked him. He looked at Wyatt. "Why don't they remember?"

Wyatt had a theory. To confirm it, he clicked on the television. The newscaster cheerfully babbled, _"…and today's top story is sweet indeed: A local bakery makes the world's biggest strawberry tart._"

"What happened to the missing school bus story?" Lyle wondered.

Wyatt called up the text message Angie had sent him, the one that outlined the terms of the whole battle in the Grimferno. When he did, the answer became apparent. "It's right here: When Dante negotiated the terms of engagement, he said that when Grim Djinn released the players, he had to restore them exactly as they were before he took them."

"So the school bus is where?" Lyle asked again.

"Well, if the Grim Djinn put everything back as if nothing ever happened, then the bus never went into the Grimferno. It would be back at school by now, and everyone on the bus would have gone home for the day. Dante and Angie would have come here…and here they are. Like it never happened. Right down to not remembering. Just like they were when the Grim Djinn took them. No cuts, no bumps, no bruises…and no poison."

"But a heck of a hangover, though," Dante complained, rubbing his aching neck.

"With seven players in seven battles, there was no way someone wasn't going to get hurt, and there was a pretty good chance they were going to lose at least one fight. With the terms Dante set, a player who was injured would have to be healed. A player who was killed…would have to be brought back to life." Wyatt was following the train of game logic to the end of the tracks. "But, Grim Djinn couldn't release Dante and heal him until Dante kept his word to stay in the Grimferno until he died. They both had to honor the terms of battle first. Pretty clever actually."

Lyle raised an eyebrow. "Clever? What if Dante hadn't been poisoned? He would have had to stay in the Grimferno as Maldark's slave forever. What if they'd lost more than one fight? Angie might have had to stay."

Wyatt shrugged. "Every game plan relies on a certain amount of dumb luck."

"Why does that sound familiar?" Angie asked around a mouthful of toothpaste foam.

"So… Dante would have been healed just coming back through the portal? Sneaking into Bolbard's Garden and the Skelhawks trying to peck my eyes out and using our one and only cheat code…we did that for nothing?" Lyle supposed he shouldn't be upset. The important thing was that their friends were back home, alive and well.

Wyatt stared at the bottle of elixir. "I wouldn't say that."

He remembered seeing Dante bite the Grim Djinn in the arm and the Grim Djinn starting to turn purple as the poison spread into his blue body. It was the last thing that they had seen on the computer before the Seeing Eye spell was broken and the screen had gone dark. _Dante poisoned the Grim Djinn. You had to love irony. _

Wyatt picked up one of the pieces of paper that had been scattered all over the room during the fight. He penned a note and taped it to the bottle of elixir. Then he keyed open the wormhole into the Grimferno and pitched the bottle through the portal.

Lyle gaped. "You gave the antidote to Grim Djinn? Why did you do that?"

"Grim Djinns can't make wishes to cure themselves of Cockatrice poison, and I'm guessing Maldark doesn't care if he lives or dies after he let Dante and Angie go," Wyatt answered

"Wyatt, I know you think that you're explaining everything, but again, why do we _want_ him cured?" Dante asked.

"We need him to owe us a favor…well three favors, actually. Wait for it."

The answer wasn't long in coming. A full minute hadn't elapsed before the Grim Djinn emerged from the wormhole. Dante jumped behind the couch, putting the furniture between himself and the massive genie. Lyle scrambled to grab his scepter. Angie backed up to the wall. Wyatt stood where he was, partially out of necessity and partially because his frightened feet wouldn't move.

Wyatt craned his neck to stare up at the blue-skinned monster's face. _Dante and Angie went seven rounds with this guy_? "Holy nuts…he's a big fella…"

The Grim Djinn gave the warehouse a disdainful quirk of his eyebrow. He bowed to the teenagers. "Black Death, Wizza, Sir Dante…Lady Methane."

Angie forgot to be frightened of the Leak when it addressed her with that god-awful title. "'Lady Methane'? Wh-" Her eyes narrowed, glaring at Dante, the only one who could possibly be responsible for giving her that disgusting name. "What did you do?"

The Grim Djinn offered the bottle and the paper to Wyatt. Lyle and Dante snatched the note away first, reading what had been written there: _"By accepting the Elixir of Nightfrost, the Grim Djinn will grant the clan Never Fail three wishes in return."_

"I agree to your terms," the genie said. His concession would have been obvious from the fact that he was no longer purple and the bottle of antidote was now empty. "Make your requests."

Wyatt was ready for the question-he'd been preparing for this since the moment he'd found out the genie had taken Dante and Angie. "Um…okay. First, you make Maldark and all his goons forget everyone's real identities. That includes you, too."

The Grim Djinn inclined his head. "Agreed."

Lyle jumped in. "And from now on, you fight on our side, you know, if Maldark comes after us again. No more capturing us or trying to destroy us."

The genie had to give that some consideration. To betray the Lord Maldark in such a way would make him a fugitive in his own realm. Maldark was a man of no honor, but he was still a man of great power. The genie might have refused, if he had not foolishly taken the antidote before asking for the terms. It was too late now. "Agreed," he said finally.

"Good idea. Ooh, and I want my skateboard back," Dante asked.

"And Angie's glove," Wyatt hurriedly added.

"Agreed." That was a simple request. The Grim Djinn snapped his fingers, and the skateboard was back in Dante's hands. At least, it had been his skateboard. Now it looked like Darth Vader's skateboard.

Dante grinned at the new board. "Awesome."

"Sir Bickle, Lady Methane…" The Grim Djinn bowed one last time. "I look forward to sharing the field of battle with you again one day."

With those parting words, he was gone and the portal to the Grimferno winked into nothingness.

"You know you can't ride that thing in public," Angie reminded Dante for the twentieth time since the genie had returned his amped-up skateboard.

"Worth it." Dante's hand ran over the board, which was concealed from view beneath a beach towel until he could get it home. He still insisted on carrying the thing around for the last week since they'd escaped the Grimferno.

Wyatt and Lyle had told them what they could of the fight in the arena. Since their knowledge was limited to what they'd seen through the Seeing Eye and what Angie had texted from the fight, there were still gaps that could not be filled in. Angie and Dante could not help. With the gaps in their memory, they knew even less than Wyatt and Lyle.

Angie had found an email that she sent herself from the Grimferno…well, it ended up in Wyatt's message board in the game, but he was polite and did not read it, since it was addressed to her. Well, to Lady Methane. Angie made Wyatt delete that awful name right away.

Grimferno Angie told her-Future Angie-to be sure to suggest that Big Joe ask Ella to the upcoming Spring Formal dance. Angie didn't understand it. Neither did Joe and Ella. But, sure enough, he had screwed up his courage and done so. The two of them were quickly becoming something of an item.

The second part of the note was an order from Grimferno Angie to Future Angie that she make damn sure Dante stuck to his tutoring sessions with Fred. The fact that Dante hated every minute of the sessions only added to Angie's fun.

The third part of the message instructed Future Angie to nag Future Dante until he tried to sort things out with his ex-best friend, Julio. To Dante and Angie's mutual surprise, he had found an email from Grimferno Dante in his own message board telling himself the same thing. Since Dante flat out refused to talk about what had happened between him and Julio and was less receptive to the idea of making amends than he was to the tutoring sessions…well, Angie was filing that task under "Work In Progress".

The final part of the message had suggested she speak to Shayne about giving Dante a chance. For some reason, that idea was giving Angie a knot in the pit of her stomach. Angie had filed task that under "Save For Later".

_Three out of four wasn't bad, was it_? Angie reasoned.

Unfortunately for Future Dante, he hadn't stopped with the note about Julio. They'd discovered a couple of days later that Grimferno Dante had sent one more message, probably when he was dying from the Cockatrice poison.

This was the reason the rest of Never Fail clan was walking him home from school that afternoon. Wyatt and Lyle walked to the right of him. Angie had linked her right arm through Dante's left arm just in case he tried to make a break for it. Them calling this a 'side quest' wasn't helping. The closer they got to his house, the slower Dante walked, until Angie was tugging him down the sidewalk.

He didn't actually stop and dig in his heels until they rounded the corner and Dante's house came into view—along with the figure standing on the porch with his mom.

Whatever had gone down in the Grimferno must have been bad on an epic level to make Grimferno Dante send a text message agreeing to see his Dad.

He shook his head and tried to retreat. Angie's grip on his arm tightened, holding him in place. "Can't do it. He bailed on me and my mom. I ignore him; he sends me cards full of money Christmas and birthday. I'm fine with our relationship the way it is."

Angie slid her hand from Dante's elbow down to lace her fingers through his. Lyle raised an eyebrow at the gesture and Wyatt shrugged. He figured the two of them were entitled to be a little more protective of each other than usual after their ordeal in the Grimferno. They'd be back to their normal relationship-whatever 'normal' was for them—before long.

"Come on, Dante. If I can survive having to give you mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, you can survive a couple of hours with your Dad," Angie persisted.

There was a bark and a large cream-colored Labrador dashed from its spot beside Dante's father and ran to greet the boy, practically jumping into Dante's arms.

"Hey, Sir Bickle." Dante scratched the dog behind the ears. The dog wagged its entire body in response. The commotion the animal had created had alerted his parents to Dante's return. They were both looking in the direction of the teenagers now.

"What am I supposed to say to him? Thanks for taking the dog and leaving me? Thanks for screwing up my entire universe?" Dante asked.

"Yes," Lyle said. "And then hear what he has to say. If it doesn't work out, at least you get a chance to tell him all this crap that's been eating at you since the divorce."

Wyatt added, "We'll be right here if you need us." He took the skateboard out of Dante's hands and gave him a gentle shove in the general direction of his house.

Still apprehensive, pushing down months of pent-up anger, Dante trudged up the sidewalk. The dog led the way, bounding back and forth between the teenager and his parents until the boy finally stood at the bottom of the steps.

"Dante."

"Dad."

Fin


End file.
